Arthur Daigle's Blog, page 12

Homecoming

Homecoming

By Arthur Daigle

Soldiering was supposed to be filled with danger, excitement and riches, but Castmal was certain that walking belonged at the top of that list. Three years a soldier and he’d walked something over a thousand miles through mud, brush, rocks and whatever else the world could throw at him. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d ridden by wagon or boat, and it had never been for long. Travel might broaden the mind, but it certainly wore out the boots.

“When shall we reach our destination?” Balefire asked.

“Soon,” Castmal said. “I can see the lights from here.”

Normally he didn’t like talking to Balefire, but today he traveled alone. This road to Ironcliff went through farmland. The broad fields had been harvested long ago and farmhouses were few and far away. This late in the year there was little traffic so he wouldn’t arouse suspicion. It was also getting dark, so there would be even fewer people who might see Castmal talking to himself.

“It shall be good to find friends,” it said, “worthy allies to serve your rise to power.”

Castmal sighed. “I told you to cut it out. You’re going to get me killed talking like that.”

“Your concerns are warrantless,” Balefire told him. “Your future was set when we met. This journey will only add to your strength once we reach your friends and kinfolk. We can count on their support in the years to come.”

“I just hope they’re all right,” he said as he passed a farmhouse. “A lot can happen in three years. I’m proof of it.”

“If your kin are in danger we will protect them,” it said with its usual boundless confidence. “If they have left for greener pastures we will find them. If they have gone to the next world, we will mourn them and avenge their passing.”

Balefire no doubt meant that to be reassuring, but it didn’t know IronCliff. Castmal had grown up in the city and knew the heights and depths it could reach. A hundred thousand people in one place left a lot of room for thieves, assassins and other vermin to hide, like serpents in a wheat field. He hadn’t worried about what might happen to the people he loved when he’d joined the army, but now that he was coming home the thought was foremost in his mind.

Ironcliff hadn’t been dangerous for Castmal when he’d lived there. One look at him convinced most people to leave him alone, and that had been before he’d joined the army. Tall, strong, with dark hair and scars alone his jaw, he was an intimidating sight. Fighting had only added to that. The worn clothes he’d once had were replaced with chain leggings and shirt, a steel breastplate and a shoulder guard on his left arm. He’d kept his long sword and two daggers when he left the service. The weapons might arouse suspicion in other cities, but not in IronCliff. Castmal wore a cotton uniform and cloak over his armor, a backpack and a leather strap wrapped tight over his left arm from the elbow to his fingers. The strap never came off around people.

“Are those lights in the distance Ironcliff?” Balefire asked.

“That’s home,” Castmal answered.

“We will not reach it until well after nightfall,” Balefire cautioned.

“Yes, mother,” he said sarcastically. “I’m not going to travel at night. I’ll find a place to stay, and you need to keep quiet.”

“I was quiet for centuries. It is overrated.”

Castmal looked at the farmhouses along the road. There weren’t many to choose from, and most of those were already sealed tight. He knew better than to knock on closed doors at night. The countryside wasn’t as dangerous as Ironcliff, but there were dangers that crept out under the cover of darkness. Only fools let in strangers at this hour.

That put Castmal in a predicament. He could drive off enemies with a look, but that would close doors, too. He’d rather not spend another night under the stars. It didn’t help that he’d run out of food this morning.

There was a farmhouse not far ahead with an open door. A young man sat outside sharpening a hoe with a steel file. His clothes were a simple cotton tunic and trousers, and he looked bored. The next nearest house was miles down the road, making this his best bet.

“Greetings,” he called. The farmer looked up in surprise. Castmal stopped a healthy distance from the man and said, “Forgive the intrusion, but can you spare space on your floor for a man in need? I wouldn’t ask, but it’s getting dark and I don’t trust these roads at night.”

The farmer looked him up and down. “I can’t see anyone bothering you, night or day.”

Castmal shrugged. “I’ve learned not to tempt fate. I can pay for the help, provided you accept trade.”

A young woman appeared at the door. Castmal guessed she was the farmer’s wife, and judging by her belly they’d have a son or daughter before the month ended. She asked, “What kind of pay?”

Castmal dug into his backpack and pulled out a handful of furs. “Rabbit and squirrel. I caught them earlier this week.”

The farmer and his wife came over to look at the furs. The farmer studied Castmal’s armor while the woman ran her fingers over the furs. She smiled and said, “These are good. I can make mittens from these.”

“We can put you up for the night and feed you, but as you say, the only place to sleep is the floor,” the farmer told him.

“That’s generous.” Castmal kept his face neutral, but he was surprised how quickly they let him into their home. In his experience people ran inside and barred the doors when armed men appeared.

The couple let him inside and the wife quickly put the furs away. The farmhouse was a small, one room building. Farm tools and clothing took up one corner opposite a bed with a straw mattress. The kitchen was a brick oven against the back way. There were bags of dried food and clay pots filled with local spices and pickled fish.

“You’re back from the war?” the farmer asked. He offered Castmal a stool while he and his wife sat on the bed.

Castmal sat down, only too glad to stop moving. He slid off his backpack and set it on the floor. “I was mustered out two months ago.”

“Is it going well?” he asked.

“Wars never go well.” Castmal would have liked to end it at that, but the couple looked eager for more. They’d probably let him in so they could hear news of the outside world. If words could smooth his stay then he’d talk.

“The fighting is a mess,” he said. “We lose men and the Principalities lose men. I suppose someone’s keeping track and one day they’ll decide who won, but for those of us doing the fighting you win if you live to see the sun rise.”

“You must have seen interesting places, though,” he pressed.

“They’re not interesting after they’ve been fought over.” Castmal looked at the fire in the brick oven. It reminded him of the last town he’d been in before he left the army. “Soldiers take whatever they can find. They have to when supplies don’t come in. All the animals are killed for food, wild and domestic. Wrecked homes are broken up for firewood. If there’s anything of value it’s sold for food. The locals run away if they can and beg for help if they can’t.”

The farmer whistled. “You couldn’t pay me enough for that.”

“What did they pay you?” his wife asked. Her husband looked at her, and she held up one of the furs. “You said you’ve no coin. I’m happy with the furs, but I would think you’d barely be able to walk under the weight of your wages.”

“My wages.” Bitterness crept into Castmal’s voice. “I was promised ten silver pieces per month and three meals a day. I’m owed three hundred silver pieces back pay, and there are better odds of me flying than ever seeing it. As for the food, we did well if they fed us three meals a week. We foraged for the rest. Creator help me, there were days I wondered whose side our generals were on.”

The farmer’s wife handed Castmal a wood bowl filled with oatmeal and a small wood plate with two eggs. “Sounds beastly. I know it’s not as much as you’d like, or need, but it’s what we can spare.”

Castmal took the food and smiled at her. “This is good food for the little I gave you. Eggs. It’s been a long time since I had eggs.”

Castmal wolfed down the food, glad to have a full stomach. He was halfway done with the simple meal when the farmer said, “But you must have taken money from the enemy.”

“Let him eat!” his wife chastised him.

Castmal ate one of the eggs and said, “Principalities soldiers were paid as poorly as we were. They had few coins and no jewelry. We sold what little we found to merchants for food. We used the weapons we took from the enemy when our own swords broke.” He tapped his long sword’s handle and said, “This used to belong to an enemy officer.”

“Don’t suppose you found any treasure,” the farmer said.

It took a lot of effort not to look at his left arm. “Nothing I could sell.”

They’d found treasure in the early days of the war, looting enemy homes and castles for anything of value. Officers had a bad habit of taking the best pickings for themselves, so Castmal and his fellow soldiers had to be quick. ‘No sir, nothing here, sir’. Castmal’s captain, an aristocrat named Becack, had suspected them of holding back loot and ordered the men searched. That had ended badly.

Castmal didn’t tell the farmer that, or any number of horrible things that had happened. You can’t explain to a person what war was really like. The long weeks of boredom between battles, the intense fear waiting for an enemy, or how even a farm field can become a place of horror when a battle begins. Nothing in normal life could compare to the gut wrenching fear of a fellow soldier screaming, ‘Wizard!’ before fire and death rained down around you.

“Were there monsters?” the farmer asked.

“Husband!” his wife said sharply. “You’ll have to forgive him, he seems to have left his manners outside.”

“There were monsters,” Castmal said. He finished his food and handed back the plate and bowl. “There were wyverns and chimera. We fought a hydra once. The blasted thing wouldn’t die. Finally ended up burying it alive when we collapsed a stone tower on it. Not sure if it’s still breathing down there, but I wouldn’t risk digging it up. Monsters weren’t what we really worried about.”

“No?” the farmer asked. He leaned in closer.

“There were never many of them on the front,” Castmal explained. “Monsters eat too much. You could feed a platoon with what one monster ate, and nothing but meat would do. If they didn’t get fed they’d attack their own men. They never followed orders well regardless of what the beast tamers say. Monsters panicked if there was a big fire and they ran if a fight got too serious. Smart that way.”

Castmal chuckled. “Funny thing happened once with a mimic, though. The thing looked like a big wooden chest with a fancy metal lock. Real convincing. It wasn’t working for the Principalities, just saw the fighting and snuck in for a free meal of horsemeat after a failed cavalry charge. The fool thing stayed too long, though, and my captain spotted it. He though he’d found an enemy pay chest and stuck it rich.”

“What happened?” the wife asked.

“It kept pretending it was just a chest. The captain couldn’t get it open, so he ordered some men to get an ax and cut it open. The mimic heard that and ran off screaming. It knocked the captain over and ran right over him! We laughed so hard a company of crossbowmen came over and then some lancers. The captain kept ordering us to shut up and we just laughed harder.”

The couple laughed. It was funny, one of the few happy memories Castmal had from the war. Happy times were few and far between back then. Of course getting back to Ironcliff was no guarantee things would be better, but they’d have a hard time being worse.

Worried by what the answer might be, Castmal asked, “Has much happened in the city?”

The farmer shrugged. “Taxes went up a couple times to pay for the war. It’s all we can do to keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates. There are executions, sometimes three a week. A lot of thieves end their lives hanging from a tree.”

Three executions a week was normal for Ironcliff and no threat to Castmal’s friends and families. They stayed clear of that kind of trouble. But there were bigger threats that could sweep up the innocent with the guilty. He asked, “No plagues or riots? No fires?”

“No, Creator be praised,” the farmer’s wife said.

“Good,” Castmal said. “I was worried a refugee might have brought in a plague. A sword’s no good against that.”

The farmer’s wife smiled and got up. “I have a blanket you can lay on, and you’re welcome to sleep by the fire. The bricks will stay hot most of the night.”

“Generous of you,” Castmal said. He looked at the door and asked, “Mind if I step out for a moment? I like to look around before I go to sleep. Old habit.”

The farmer nodded. “Feel free.”

Castmal got up and opened the door. He studied the farmland, looking for threats. It was foolish to think something would happen here. He heard only the wind and some bugs. There was nothing to see but farmland as flat as a table, and the stubbly on the field offered no cover for attackers. Now that he thought of it, there was no one who might attack. The Principalities was far away. Monsters wouldn’t come this close to a city. There were bandits, of course, but they attacked people with money. One look was enough to tell that none of these farmers were prosperous enough to bother robbing. But Castmal had done this every night for three years, and likely would until he died.

The farmer walked up alongside him. “Crickets are singing. They’ll be gone when we get a strong frost.”

Castmal glanced at the man, not sure why he’d said that.

The farmer looked at the setting sun. “They only live a year. They spend all their time in one field, then one day there’s a frost and they’re gone.” He looked ashamed. “I don’t want to be like that. I love my wife, but I don’t want to spend my whole life here, never moving, never seeing anything but these fields.”

The good reception made sense now. The farmer didn’t just want news. He wanted more than his simple life here, and hearing stories was the closest he was likely going to get. It wasn’t surprising. Castmal had been seduced by the same dreams of wealth and adventure, as had many of the men he’d served with. Some had joined out of desperation, running away from debts or the law, but most had been tricked into thinking they were going on to glory instead of horror and deprivation.

“I’d give anything for the life you have,” Castmal told him. “Anything to take away the last three years.”

The farmer stared at him. “You want this?”

“Yes. So would the men I’d served with. I’m going home broke, but some of them are returning crippled. A lot of them aren’t returning. I’m not even sure what I’m coming home to. You have a livelihood here with your farm. You have a wife and a child on the way. You have a future. I’m not sure I do.”

“Ahem.”

“Did you hear something?” the farmer asked.

Castmal rapped his left arm against the doorframe. “No. I…wait.”

“What is it?”

“The cricket’s stopped singing.”

A cloud of fetid air washed over them, heavy with the stench of rotting flesh that Castmal had become familiar with. The farmer coughed and covered his mouth and nose with his shirtsleeve. Castmal drew his long sword and stepped away from the farmhouse. He couldn’t see the source of this stench, but it wasn’t natural.

The sun was nearly set, but a full moon offered at least a little light. Castmal peered into the darkness. He heard something moving, crushing the wheat stubble underfoot. There were one, two, three things moving out in the fields. The footsteps were irregular and make no effort to avoid making noise. The stink got worse, and Castmal saw three shapes that might be men shuffling through the fields ever closer to the farmhouse.

“Inside, now!” Castmal ordered the farmer.

The farmer backed away. “I—”

“Do you have a weapon?” Castmal demanded.

“A pitchfork,” he said.

“Get inside and grab it. Bar the door if you want to see the morning!”

The farmer ran inside and slammed the door shut. Castmal heard a thunk as the door was barred, followed by the farmer and his wife speaking in worried voices. The shambling forms were a hundred feet out and coming closer. One tripped on the stubble and got up slowly. They weren’t moving fast, but they weren’t stopping.

Castmal unwrapped his left arm to reveal a silvery gauntlet covering his arm from elbow to fingertips. It was a masterpiece, beautifully embellished with a dragon.

“Finally,” Balefire said.

“We’re earning our meal tonight,” Castmal said. He stepped away from the house to give himself room to move. “Zombies. I count three.”

“I despise these abominations,” Balefire said in disgust. The gauntlet warmed up and flowed like melted wax, oozing down his arm. He held up his left hand as the silvery liquid reformed into a short sword with a dragon emblem on the blade. It lit up like a torch, providing much needed light.

The light showed that Castmal was right. The three shambling things had been men once. Their clothes were muddy rags. Their skin was discolored and torn. One of the zombies had no eyes, but that didn’t slow it down as it advanced on Castmal. They would be on him soon.

Castmal charged the closest zombie, hoping to dispatch it before all three were on him together. The nightmarish thing tried to grab him, its movements slow and awkward. He stepped to the left and swung his long sword in a low arc. His aim was good and he took off one of its legs at the knee. The monster fell, but no sooner had it landed than it crawled after him.

Zombies didn’t die like men or animals. Their organs were just dead weight, so a blow to the chest or stomach was worthless. They couldn’t bleed to death, either. Castmal had fought their kind before and knew he had to behead them, and the best way to do that was to cripple them first.

“The others are coming on your right,” Balefire said.

Castmal brought his long sword down on the crawling zombie, taking its head off with one blow. The monstrosity slumped to the ground as the second and third zombies came at Castmal. He lashed out and took off one of his attacker’s hands with his long sword, then followed up by driving Balefire into its belly.

“Burn!” he ordered.

Balefire blazed with a terrible white light, cremating the zombie from the inside out. The light spilled out of its mouth and open wounds as it arched its back. Then decaying flesh and bones alike burned away. There was nothing left of the zombie but ashes on the field.

The last zombie grabbed Castmal by his left arm. It pulled him to the ground and leaned over him, its jaw opened wide for a bite to his throat. He brought his legs up and kicked it in the head with both feet. That was enough to knock the zombie on its back. They both scrambled to their feet, but Castmal was faster. He swung his long sword and took off the last zombie’s head before it could stand.

“Well done, my King.” Balefire said.

“I told you to stop that!” he shouted. He sheathed his long sword and pointed at his brow. “Do you see a crown here?”

“A temporary situation. I served kings and was buried with one. When you freed me from that wretched tomb I knew I served another. One day you will rule.”

Castmal grumbled and bent down to inspect the last zombie he’d defeated. “There are rope marks on the neck and wrists. This man was hung. He’s not too far gone, either. A necromancer must have stolen the body after he was executed and animated it.”

“Check the other one.”

The first zombie he’d killed was in better shape. “No rope marks or wounds. No signs of disease, either. He was pretty young. I think this one may have drown.”

“Both are freshly dead, no older than a week,” Balefire said.

Castmal rubbed his chin. “Zombies are mindless, but they serve their maker. Why would a necromancer want to kill these people? They have nothing to steal.”

Castmal’s mind raced. “Could be someone wants the farmland. It’s got to be worth gold, and if the owners are dead it could be claimed. It might be the work of the Principalities. No one can spread fear like a necromancer, and killing farmers would keep food from soldiers still on the front. Or the necromancer might want bodies and not be picky how they die.”

“Or the necromancer is insane and there is no reason,” Balefire suggested. “Madness is an occupational hazard in their profession.”

“Yeah,” he said. The air was still foul, more so after he’d cut open the zombies, but he heard nothing. There was no sign that he was still in danger, but he kept both his long sword and Balefire drawn. “I’d bet gold to silver than whoever made these is close by. They’d have to be to recover the zombies after the attack. Wouldn’t do to let them wander around and be found.”

“Zombies can’t follow complex orders. He could order them to kill the farmer and wife, but they wouldn’t remember a second order to come back afterwards.”

“Why do you say he? Could be a woman who did this.”

“This is the fourth necromancer I have faced. They’re always men.”

“Then he’s going to come pick up his zombies,” Castmal said. “When he gets here he’ll find them in pieces. Has to figure if someone took them down then he’s in danger. You think he’ll run? Running would be smart.”

“It wouldn’t be smart,” Balefire said. “If he killed the family and left with their bodies, few could say who or what did the deed. But with witnesses and destroyed zombies, there would be no doubt who was responsibility for the attack. The authorities would begin a manhunt of epic proportions, turning over every stone until they found him. The punishment for necromancy varies by kingdom. It starts at burning at the stake and gets worse from there.”

“So he’s got no choice but to fight,” Castmal said. “I hate fighting people with no way out. They do stupid things. Dim your light. We’ll wait for him and finish it here.”

As Balefire’s light diminished, there was a creak behind them. Castmal turned to find the farmer opening his door. Before the man could say a word, Castmal shouted, “I said keep that door closed! This isn’t over, and it’s going to get worse!”

The door slammed shut.

“We could be in a lot of trouble,” Castmal said. “The necromancer could attack the farmer and his wife, or one of the other farms here. I’d have to defend them and fight him at the same time. Can’t call on the farmers living here for help, either. Poor weapons, untrained, they’d be butchered.”

“A bad situation to be sure, but we will be victorious. Honestly, though, you don’t need two swords even for a job this important.”

“If men saw me using you, they’d kill me without a second’s hesitation to have you for themselves. If they don’t see me with a sword at all then some idiot would pick a fight, maybe try to rob me. You stay covered up and quiet unless you’re needed.”

Castmal waited in the darkness. The ghostly light from the full moon helped a little, but not much. He didn’t hear anything approaching. The stink of the dead zombies clung to him, making his stomach roll. He tried to guess how much time had passed. Clocks were rare even in cities, but there were some in Ironcliff so he was used to thinking in terms of hours. An hour crept by, then two.

Ironcliff was still visible in the distance as a collection of lights. There were fewer of them burning at such a late hour, but it was still a beacon in the night. He thought again of his home city, of the family he’d left behind. Oddly his mind kept coming back to his favorite restaurant, a nameless, dimly lit little hole in the wall that cooked the best meals he’d ever had. Of course with no money he couldn’t eat there when he got home.

There was no getting around it; he was coming back empty handed. He had no money and nothing he could sell except his armor and long sword. Three years of his life gone and he didn’t have a coin to show for his sacrifices. How could he face his family?

He had Balefire, but he dared not sell it. The sword was alive. You didn’t sell living, thinking beings. But even if he was that depraved, he was smart enough to know that anyone who might buy it would prefer to kill him and take it off his body.

His old captain Becack had tried to kill him. When he’d ordered the men searched for holding back loot, he saw the leather strap covering Castmal’s arm. Becack guessed something was under it besides a wound and tore the strap off. One look at Balefire and the fool’s eyed had lit up with greed, and drew his sword. It had been all Castmal could do to fend off Becack’s furious attacks. The other soldiers had saved him and made it look like a sniper killed the captain.

But Castmal had more immediate problems. “You’ve fought necromancers. What can I expect?”

“I thought you’d fought zombies before?”

“Zombies, but not necromancers.” Castmal was silent for a moment before he said, “It happened before I found you. The Principalities hired a necromancer and had him animate the bodies of our dead, then sent them at us. Happened three times in a week.”

“That must have been horrible. What happened to the necromancer?”

“It ended when a Principalities platoon came under a flag of truce and gave us the necromancer’s head. They said they weren’t party to hiring him, and once they realized what was going on they did something about it.”

“An ending worthy of such a fiend.”

“What can I expect from him?” Castmal asked again.

Balefire’s voice took a harsh tone when he spoke. “Most of their magic is devoted to creating the undead. They have dangerous combat magic as well, but the range is limited.”

“Arrow range or knife range?”

“Their magic reach as far as a thrown rock, but does terrible damage. I will offer warning if I recognize any of his spells. Hold back nothing against this foe, for he will show you no mercy in battle or in death.”

That was a possibility Castmal hadn’t considered. If he died the necromancer would animate his body and send him to kill others. He’d be nothing but a mindless puppet with the necromancer holding the strings. The only mercy would be that without his mind he couldn’t control Balefire.

“He’s here.”

Castmal crouched down at Balefire’s warning. “Where?”

“You see those light coming up the road? They’re called corpse fire, a necromancer’s way to light the land. He can see through them, too.”

Castmal stared down the road and saw pinpricks of light floating at head height. There were five of them, bobbing up and down as they came closer. They were a mile away and moving lazily toward him.

“Not much of a rush,” Castmal said. With his enemy so far off he stood up straight again. “Figure he knows something’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. He’s too far away to see the zombies or the farmhouse they were going to attack.”

The corpse fires came closer. They spread out across the field, moving at a leisurely rate. Castmal saw figures moving far behind them. There were five of them, four shambling and one walking more smoothly.

“He’s got more zombies. Those corpse fires, can they hurt me? Can I hurt them?”

“No to both questions.”

Castmal frowned as the corpse fires spread out farther. “Doubt we can avoid them. No place to hide except the farmhouse. We’re going to have to fight them head on.”

The corpse fires, zombies and necromancer came ever closer, showing no sign of haste or alarm. It was tough odds even with Balefire. The thought that he might die within sight of Ironcliff disgusted Castmal. He’d survived terrible battles for years. To die so close to home seemed wrong. And if he died the farmer and his wife would be the necromancer’s next victims.

The corpse fires came close enough for Castmal to see them clearly. They looked like flaming skulls hovering through the air. One of them floated over the first zombie Castmal had destroyed. The other four circled about until they found the second destroyed zombie. Then one saw Castmal.

He smiled at it. “Surprise.”

That corpse fire backed away while the others approached. Two studied the farmhouse and the other three circled Castmal.

“You’re sure I can’t kill these things?”

“Quite certain.”

The corpse fires kept their distance as the necromancer and his four undead minions came ever closer. They still didn’t hurry. That annoyed Castmal. The necromancer had proof that two of his zombies were destroyed, and the third was missing and presumed dead. This called for action! But the necromancer continued his stroll like a man on a shopping trip. It was almost offensive how little this seemed to bother him.

The zombies and their master finally got to within thirty feet of Castmal before they stopped. Two corpse fires hovered over their master while the other three stayed by Castmal. The four zombies were far more decomposed than the three he’d already face, missing their eyes and skin. It was a good bet they wouldn’t last the week even if Castmal didn’t defeat them. The necromancer kept behind his minions, but Castmal still got a good look at him. He wore billowing robes and leather boots. But his boyish face caught Castmal off guard.

“I thought he’d be older,” Castmal whispered.

“A common misconception,” Balefire whispered back. “Few necromancers live long enough to get gray hair.”

“You were right, it’s a man. I owe you a beer.” Balefire chuckled in response.

“This is annoying,” the necromancer declared. He had a petulant expression and an annoying voice that made Castmal want to slap him.

“We went past annoying a while ago,” Castmal replied. He considered the reasons why the necromancer might be here. The man didn’t look insane, just spoiled. That meant this night’s horror was probably over money. “You’re not getting paid enough for this.”

The necromancer’s look of irritation slipped for a moment to show surprise and a touch of fear. But he recovered quickly. “And what are you being paid to die tonight?”

“Me? I got two eggs.”

“Eggs? Eggs!”

Castmal nodded. “Eggs. And some oatmeal. Truth is I’d have done it for free. Do you know where I’ve been?”

The necromancer folded his arms across his chest. “You’re another washed up old soldier, battle fodder for whatever war is popular this year. Your kind infests the roads like lice on a peasant. No one cares where you’ve been and no one will care when you die.”

“Can you say otherwise? Is anybody going to care when you don’t come home tonight?”

The necromancer’s face flushed red. “I’ll show them! All of them! My parents, my classmates and the people who laughed at me! They’ll know my name and they will weep for years to come!”

“Don’t lie to me. I saw the look on your face when I guessed this was about money. You have excuses, but if you’re getting paid then that’s all they are. Kid, I’ve put enough men in the ground to fill a cemetery. I took down three of your rot bags without getting a scratch. Four more aren’t going to save you. I’m giving you a chance to be smart. Walk away now and this ends.”

Hopefully it would end in a platoon of Ironcliff soldiers chasing the necromancer down and hanging him. Castmal wondered if the fool had thought that far ahead.

“You’re right on one count,” the necromancer sneered. “This ends.”

The four zombies came at him while the necromancer stayed back. They were close enough that they’d come at him in a group rather than one at a time. But they were clumped together, and he could use that.

Castmal charged the zombies and hacked at the first one’s leg. He didn’t take it off, but he cut through enough muscles that the zombie fell over. The next zombie stumbled over the first one. The other two went around the pile, giving Castmal enough time to attack the fallen zombies and decapitate one. The two still standing attacked, and he backed away and stabbed one with Balefire.

“Burn!” Castmal shouted. The zombie went up like a torch, burning away to ashes in seconds. The necromancer shielded his eyes from the sudden light. That left Castmal to fight only two zombies and the necromancer, and he could handle three to one odds.

The necromancer spoke strange, forgotten words. His eyes turned black and he threw back his head. A gurgling noise bubbled from his throat before he vomited out a stream of black steaming liquid like a geyser. The filth stunk like boiling tar, and there was far more than his stomach could possibly contain. Castmal jumped out of the way as the glistening, ebony stream splashed where he’d been standing. It struck the two zombies on the ground, one dead again and the other struggling to its feet. Both dissolved under the caustic spray and left behind nothing but bones.

“Two more behind you,” Balefire warned.

Castmal backed away from the necromancer and what he’d thought was the last zombie. He glanced behind him and saw two zombies coming from up the road. The necromancer’s slow pace made sense now. He’d directed two of his undead minions to attack Castmal from behind and waited until they were in place. But the attack’s timing was off. The zombies were coming in two groups and could be handled separately.

The necromancer stumbled away. The spell had clearly taken a lot out of him and he needed time to recover. Castmal charged the last zombie in front of its master and hacked off its left arm. He tried to push past it and get to the necromancer, but the thing grabbed him with its remaining arm and tried to bite him. Its teeth didn’t break through his chain shirt, but the force of the bite bruised his arm. Castmal stabbed it in the face with Balefire and forced it off, then took off its remaining hand. His next blow removed its head.

The necromancer shook himself like a wet dog and stood straight. He pulled a thighbone from inside his cloak and pointed it at Castmal. The necromancer spoke more foul, forgotten words, and the bone began to glow.

“Cover your eyes,” Balefire said.

Castmal wrapped his right arm over his face and turned away just as the thighbone shattered into a cloud of long, sharp bone splinters. They hit Castmal like a wave of nails. Most broke against his armor, but some drove through his chain leggings and shirt, and two cut gashes across his forehead.

“Die!” the necromancer screamed. “Just die, you pathetic, washed up tramp!”

Castmal pulled his arm away and wiped the blood off his brow. The last two zombies were almost in range to attack. Whether he faced the necromancer of his zombies, the other could strike him from behind. But the necromancer was the bigger threat, and more importantly, he could feel fear.

Howling a battle cry, Castmal charged the necromancer. His enemy cast another spell and produced a shadowy viper ten feet long. The magic snake hissed and threw itself into the air at Castmal, its jaws wide enough to fit his entire head inside. Castmal swung Balefire and jammed the blade through its head, pinning its jaws shut. He followed with a stroke of his long sword that cut the serpent in half. The snake turned to a viscous slime that splatted across Castmal and the farm field.

The necromancer’s jaw dropped in surprise and he ran with Castmal a step behind. But the necromancer wore no heavy armor, and with each step he put more distance between them. Once he had enough breathing room, he cast another spell. His hands twisted like squid tentacles and he cried out in pain. His fingernails suddenly stretched out until they were a foot long and glowed sickly green.

Castmal swung his long sword at the necromancer’s chest. He needed only a glancing blow to draw blood, and a solid hit could cripple his foe. The necromancer countered the blade with his freakish claws. Sparks flew as he stopped the sword cold. The necromancer swung his other hand at Castmal’s face. Castmal blocked with Balefire, and neither the magic sword nor his enemy’s claws gave way.

For a moment the two pressed against one another, swords and claws locked together. Castmal would have bet anything that he could knock over the necromancer, but the fiend held his ground. Neither budged an inch.

“Why kill these people?” Castmal shouted at him.

“Someone had to be first,” the necromancer snarled in reply. “They’ll all die, everyone here, screaming and begging and—”

“The zombies are catching up to us!” Balefire warned.

The necromancer stared at the sword in confusion. It was all Castmal needed. He stepped back and the necromancer stumbled forward. Castmal went left and swept his long sword at the man’s ankle. It wasn’t more than a glancing blow, but enough to cut through the man’s boot and his Achilles’ tendon. The necromancer screamed in pain and fell forward as his leg gave way. He reached out with both hands to break his fall, which kept him from blocking an attack with his claws. Castmal drove Balefire through the necromancer’s gut and pulled it out again in a flash. The necromancer fell to the ground.

“Behind you!”

Castmal whirled around to find both zombies within arm’s reach. He swung his long sword at a zombie’s head, but his aim was off and the blade sunk deep into its shoulder. The two zombies pummeled him with their fists and drove him to his knees. Castmal hacked through a zombie’s knees with Balefire. The monster fell backward, and when it did it took the long sword with it, pulling the weapon from Castmal’s hands. The other zombie grabbed him by his neck and throttled him. He rocked back and forth, trying to break free. He pulled at the zombie’s hands, and to his horror he tore off its fingers.

Behind him, the necromancer pulled himself to his knees. He pressed both hands against his wound and began to cast another spell.

Castmal drove Balefire into the standing zombie, but his throat hurt so much he couldn’t order Balefire to burn. The zombie clubbed Castmal with its arms. He pulled Balefire free and plunged it into the zombie’s knee. The zombie fell on top of him and he threw it off. Both zombies were down but not destroyed, and they crawled after Castmal.

The necromancer continued with his spell. He stopped twice, gasping in pain, but did not stop. Castmal ran at the necromancer and reversed his grip on Balefire so it pointed down. He grabbed the hilt with both hands and kicked the necromancer over, then drove the sword through the necromancer’s heart. The necromancer gasped and fell to the ground, finally dead. The crippled zombies slumped over at their master’s death, and the corpse fires winked out, plunging the land into darkness once more.

“How badly are you hurt?” Balefire asked.

Castmal slumped down to the ground next to the necromancer’s body. He croaked, “Give me a minute.”

He put the sword down and rubbed his throat. Castmal pulled the bone needles from the necromancer’s thighbone weapon out of his arm. His arms and face hurt, and he likely looked like he’d wrestled an ogre. He was bruised and cut in a couple places, but he’d been hurt worse than this before.

“Why didn’t you burn the necromancer when you first struck me with him?” Balefire asked.

“Need, need his face. Someone might know who he is, and they can’t identify a pile of ashes.”

Balefire turned into a silvery liquid again and slithered up Castmal’s left arm. It reformed into a gauntlet and asked, “Do you need a healer?”

“No. I need a week to rest.” He laughed, his voice sounding harsh. “And I’m not getting it.”

“What do you mean?”

Castmal struggled to his feet and stumbled over to the two zombies. He grabbed the hilt of his long sword and put his foot on the dead monster’s chest, then pulled hard. The blade came out so fast he nearly fell over. He stood on unsteady legs and pointed the sword at the necromancer. “Someone hired him to do this. Someone knew who he was and what he did, and they hired him anyway. They did it outside my home city. There’s a price to pay for that.”

Staggering back to the farmhouse, he asked, “You know what we’re going to do? You and I are going back to the farmer and his wife, and we are going to tell them everything is okay, that this is over. And we won’t be lying, because we are not walking away from this mess. In the morning we going home and find anyone who will still talk to me, and I’m going to tell them what happened here.”

“Does that include the authorities?”

Laughing even though it hurt, Castmal said, “They couldn’t even feed me when I fought a war for them!” Thinking better of it, he said, “I’ll tell them. If I don’t the farmer will. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for them to fix this. You, and I, and my friends and family, we are going to find who is behind this. We are going to hunt them down no matter where they are or who they are, and we are going to kill them.”

Balefire glowed brighter, and its voice was heavy with pride. “As my King wills it, so shall it be done.”

Goblin Stories Epilog

“Normally I don’t like goodbyes, but this one means no one is trying to kill us,” Brody said. “I like that.”

“It’s a rare and happy improvement,” Julius Craton told him. “History shows it’s a temporary one.”

Brody guided Julius Craton through the woods and back ways of the Land of the Nine Dukes, careful to avoid settlements of any kind. This wasn’t hard to do given how many communities the Fallen King’s army torched before they were defeated, but there were still a large number of fortified towns and castles that had survived the war. While it was good they hadn’t been destroyed, the people living there might not be friendly.

The Nine Dukes had survived the war largely by avoiding it, and now that the fighting was over they’d sent out their soldiers. Most people would thank their lucky stars they were alive, but the dukes treated this as an opportunity to raid one another while things were still unsettled. It was doubtful they’d afford Julius a warm welcome and no chance they’d tolerate a goblin’s presence.

It didn’t help that the last battle had cost Julius so much. His steel breastplate and chain armor were gone, so damaged by acidic slime that they crumbled at the touch. He’d given them to a blacksmith for scrap metal. The most celebrated member of the Guild of Heroes now wore simple cotton clothes, secondhand boots and a backpack loaded with three day’s provisions. These were good enough for traveling, but useless should a fight break out. His long sword was gone, broken beyond repair, but he wasn’t defenseless with the magic sword Sworn Doom sheathed on his belt.

The fighting was over, and with it any reason for Julius Craton and the others to remain. Their army had disbursed quickly, with The Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua’s men leaving the Land of the Nine Dukes entirely. Many others left as well, for the land had suffered much from the depredations of the Fallen King. With so many farms and towns destroyed there was no choice but to flee and hope for better chances elsewhere.

Julius pointed at two of their fellow goblins who were taking another route. Campots and Thipins were still visible in the distance, mainly because Campots had so covered himself in stolen rope that he looked like a ball with legs. Even now they could hear the little goblin giggling at his fortune in rope.

Julius frowned. “I’m not sure it’s safe for him to travel like that.”

“We just fought a war and you’re worried about him being safe?”

“Fighting doesn’t end just because the war did,” Julius countered. “Over a thousand men deserted the Fallen King in his last battle. They aren’t the threat they used to be, but they’re still dangerous.”

Brody shrugged. “This might be one of those rare times when the Nine Dukes are helpful. They wouldn’t fight an army, but starving, demoralized men? They’re all over that.” More casually, he asked Julius, “Why didn’t you go with that Vasellia lady?”

“Because she’s a leader in the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua’s army and I’m with the Guild of Heroes. She and her people left the Land of the Nine Dukes for a safe place to rest and recover. They don’t need me for that.”

“That’s not what I meant. She seemed to like you. I mean really like you.”

“Of course she likes me. We’re friends.”

It looked like Brody would have to spell things out. “That kind of ‘friends’ ends with matching rings and you saying I do.”

That stopped Julius in his tracks. “What? Where are you getting this from?”

“The way she looked at you, tried to constantly be around you, supported you in every decision regardless of what people on her own side thought. That’s where.”

Julius waved his hands. “You’re reading way too much into this. She’s a friend and that’s all.” More softly, he added, “She’ll be safer away from me.”

“What’s that mean?”

Julius went through his backpack and took out a sheet of paper. “I found this pasted to a tree this morning. It’s not the first time this happened, but it’s the fastest I’ve ever been turned on.”

Brody took the sheet and saw a passably good drawing of Julius on it. Below were the words, “Wanted: Julius Craton. Crimes include inciting peasants to armed rebellion, raising an illegal army, theft of goods totaling 5000 gold sovereigns and murder. Reward of 1000 gold sovereigns, dead or alive.”

Brody’s jaw dropped. “What the blazes is this!”

Julius took the sheet back and put it in his backpack. “Peasants aren’t allowed to hold weapons in the Land of the Nine Dukes, so by arming and training them I incited them to rebel. Only dukes can command armies, so the peasants I commanded were an illegal army. When we collected food before the Fallen King could loot it that was stealing since it belonged to the dukes. As for murder, only soldiers appointed by the dukes are allowed to use lethal force. Under a strict interpretation of the law I’m guilty on all charges.”

“But you saved the dukes!”

Julius continued down the trail. “I have death sentences waiting for me in five countries and fifteen cities. This is just one more. Vasellia and her friends have enough trouble without worrying about the bounty hunters that are going to come after me, and I have to get back to the Guild of Heroes while there’s some chance of saving them from bankruptcy.”

Brody followed him in silence. He didn’t think about money often, as goblins couldn’t spend it anywhere, but clearly Julius needed the stuff. Slowly, he asked, “After all that, you’re not going home with any gold, are you?”

“Where would I get it from? Joshua’s army, and that sounds so odd when he’s not even teething yet, is broke and on the run. Duke Warwick is the only duke not after my head, but he lost a lot of money when the Fallen King torched so much of his land.” He patted Brody on the back. “We did a good thing. That’s going to have to be enough.”

It wasn’t enough. Brody smiled when he saw a side road ahead of them that lead to Sanctuary, a small island cut off from the world and only accessible through a magic door. He’d nearly gotten Julius through that door before this foolishness started. Now he had another chance.

“You know, you could take a vacation. A few weeks in Sanctuary would do you wonders.” Those weeks would turn into decades once Brody locked the door behind Julius and broke the key.

Julius had a thoughtful look on his face. “I can spare a little time. A week at most.”

“Just until the heat dies down,” Brody said approvingly. “I wish I could get a few of the others to come.”

“They’re all seen to, thankfully. The peasants and their families went to Duke Warwick, Joshua or joined a new group called the Barrel Wrights. I’d never heard of them before coming here. Have you?”

“Nope. Take a left here.”

Smiling, Julius said, “They’ll be safe with them. The ogres went home and so did Duke Warwick’s men. Little Old Dude left with his students and a few new goblins he’d picked up. That just leaves Witch Hazel. Last I heard, her house was looted and burned down by the Fallen King’s men before the final battle. I may not like her much, but she did help us. I hope she’s okay.”

“She’s doing better than okay,” Brody said. “Duke Warwick invited her to join him.”

Looking worried, Julius said, “That may not be a good idea. She helped us, but she’s still a troublesome person who caused a good deal of mischief. What possible interest could Duke Warwick have in her?”

“He’s widowed.” Julius didn’t get the implications right away, and blushed when he did.

“Warwick would never, probably…likely not do something like that!”

Brody frowned and asked, “You don’t have much experience off the battlefield, do you?”

“Uh, no.” Julius got nervous when his personal life came up. “I can’t seem to go a month without being sent on a mission. It’s hard sometimes, but it has to be done or people suffer.”

Someone else would have to do it in the future. They were mere miles from the magic door, and Brody could save Julius from a grizzly death at the hands of bandits, hags, monsters or the authorities. Just a few more hours and he’d be safe.

They heard hooves beating the road ahead of them, and a lone knight in plate armor approached. Brody looked for cover and found nothing big enough and close enough for them to hide behind. Julius stopped on the road and rested his right hand on Sword Doom, the weapon still sheathed. The knight came to a halt twenty feet ahead of them and lowered the tip of his lance until it pointed at the ground.

“Julius Craton, I presume?”

“You are correct.”

The knight’s helmet hid his face, but somehow he still looked uneasy. “Sir, your name and deeds are know to me, as are the charges laid against you.”

Julius said nothing and waited for the knight to continue. The pause dragged on until even the horse looked nervous. Finally the knight spoke.

“Though my duke has issued a warrant against you, I shall not bar your way. I know your deeds and how you defeated a threat my master should have sent me against. It shames me that a foreigner defended my lands, but the fault doesn’t lie at your feet. I’m not fool enough to think I could best you in combat, either, nor would it bring me honor if I did when you lack a horse, armor and proper weapons.”

Julius bowed. “Your words bring you honor. This land has known enough bloodshed. Peace and hard work will bring it to health again.”

The knight bowed. “Your reputation precedes you. I fear your estimations of me may be premature, for I can’t offer you the aid you deserve when remnants of the bandit army still haunt this land. My duke has finally set his men loose against them. I can only bid you good luck, and offer a warning: not all of my brother knights share my view of you. Safe journey to you.”

With that the knight saluted and rode off. Brody breathed a sigh of relief at this rare sign of intelligence among humans.

“He’s right, we should get moving before nightfall,” Julius said. “Knights and soldiers might not recognize me in the dark and could attack.”

“They might do it if they do recognize you.” Brody led him down the side road and into a patch of woods. It was a pleasant route, but one that turned foul as they came upon yet another burned out farmhouse. The fields were laced with ashes, and there was nothing of the house or barn save charred wood, the home’s stone chimney and a well.

Julius looked miserable. “I’d hoped to spare these people such suffering. They can rebuild it time, but their lives were hard enough before this nightmare came to them. They deserved better.”

“We all do,” Brody told him. “Half of life is rolling with the punches the best you can. Julius, where are you going?”

“My water bottle is empty,” he said as he walked to the well. “The Fallen King’s men left the well intact, but they may have poisoned it by dumping dung or animal carcasses into the water. Give me a moment to check.”

The well had a wood crank with a rope and bucket attached to it. Julius lowered the bucket into the water and brought it up. He smelled the water and tasted it before drinking. He filled a leather water bottle and was about to leave when he peered into the deep waters of the well.

Then he grabbed the bucket and dove in.

“Julius!” Brody screamed. He heard a splash as Julius hit the water, and the crank whirred as it let out rope faster than was ever intended. Brody ran up to the well and grabbed onto the lip. Panicking, he shouted, “Julius! Oh God, oh God, what do I do?”

Seconds later Julius came back up. He was soaking wet as he climbed the rope back to the top of the well. But before he got out, he dropped a shiny yellow bar that was so heavy it sank halfway into the ground when it landed.

Brody stared at the bar in horror. It was made of gold and had to weigh fifty pounds, a treasure men would kill for in a heartbeat. “Oh no.”

“It’s gold, Brody!” Julius shouted. He was smiling, a rare act in the time Brody had known him. “There are two more bars down there, maybe more. Do you know what this means?”

“We’re dead if people find us?”

“I suppose so, but that wasn’t my point. This bar has to be worth five thousand gold coins. With this and the other treasure here, I can pay off the bankers that are threatening to foreclose on the Guild of Heroes. We’re saved!”

“But Sanctuary is just down the road!”

“It sounds wonderful, it does, but I have to do this. I’ve spent years in the guild saving others. Now I can save the guild! I’m going down for the rest of it. Keep an eye out for me.”

Julius took a deep breath and dove back into the well. Brody dropped to the ground and covered his face with his hands. He’d failed to save Julius again. But he was still alive. That meant there would be more chances to get the poor man to safety. He just had to be patient.

Miserable as he was, Brody knew he wasn’t the only goblin still in danger.

* * * * *

“You need fear nothing, little ones!” Hammerhand Loudlung boomed. The ogre took small steps as he walked with Stubs and Finny, largely because he was very large and they weren’t. They traveled north, moving as fast as they could without the ogre carrying them. He had offered, but the two goblins preferred to keep their feet on the ground in case the ogre decided to do something brave or stupid (goblins consider the two words synonymous).

“You’re being awfully confident that other people aren’t going to act dumb,” Stubs said. The red skinned goblin watched nervously for anyone who might try to rob them. He wasn’t normally so skittish, but he rarely held something so powerful, and so horrible.

“My confidence rests not in others but in myself and in you,” he said. Hammerhand crouched down to look the goblins in their eyes. “You two fought a war and lived, yet you still don’t believe in yourselves. Have faith! Have courage! Have a drink!”

In addition to his huge hammer, the ogre had a fifty gallon barrel of beer strapped to his back. He’d already emptied half of it during their trip and it sloshed as he walked, but he hadn’t drained it alone. Hammerhand had been generous in sharing his bounty with anyone they’d met, and the beer had eased their way with many local officials. He also told them where to get more, a bit of free advertising that would no doubt send business to his fellow ogres in Killrith.

They’d been walking north for weeks and had reached Ket Kingdom. Ket was known for rich farmland, world class archers and a king so stupid he struggled to have an IQ in the double digits. The road they were currently on ran between fields of wheat so tall the goblins could hide in it if they needed to.

“We’re almost there!” Hammerhand continued. Stubs wondered if the ogre was even capable of talking softly. Smiling and smelling of beer, he said, “There haven’t been many problems along the way except for that griffin, the elf patrol, a couple bandits and those two bounty hunters who tried to collect the price on my head.”

“I thought there were more,” Stubs said.

“It just seems that way.” Still smiling, Hammerhand said, “Don’t think so poorly of others. After all, we’ve met thousands of people who did us no harm. You see, most people are good, and the rest are just a bit stringy.”

Stubs and Finny screamed and ran into the wheat fields. Hammerhand shouted, “It was a joke! I don’t eat people! Come on, guys, how long have you known me?”

“Too long,” Finny called back. The dirty digger goblin came back reluctantly, as did Stubs.

The truth was the two goblins would have separated from Hammerhand in a heartbeat if they could. They wanted nothing more than to wander off in search of fun, good times and whatever mischief they could get into.

But they needed him. Stubs still held his black scabbard with gold decorations, but it was no longer empty. After they defeated the Fallen King they still had his horrible sword to deal with. It had survived the explosion that took the Fallen King’s life and the worst that both Hammerhand and Sword Doom could do to it. The goblins had abandoned the weapon once and would not do so again. It had to be destroyed.

Stubs stopped to check his map. “I’m not sure how close we are to the Kingdom of the Goblins. The map shows two borders and has lots of question marks.”

“We’ve only met humans so far, so I think we’re still in Ket,” Finny said.

A farmer working his fields called out, “You left Ket a while ago.”

“But there’s no way you’d live in goblin lands,” Finny called back.

“Royal maps say I do, and that keeps the tax collectors away,” the farmer replied. “You boys keep walking and you’ll see more goblins than you know what to do with.”

With that nebulous answer the three continued north past three villages and miles of farmland. They eventually left the lush wheat fields and found themselves in a forest of young trees growing in thin, rocky soil. The farther they went the more graffiti and other signs of goblins they came across. This included a trap that hit Hammerhand in the legs with a bucket of dung. The ogre just laughed and brushed it off.

Another hour brought them to the Goblin City, a monument to poor management and worse housing standards. The city was in ruins from years of neglect, and little remained outside of the gatehouse and city wall. Goblins ran by in their thousands, hooting and babbling in the sheer joy of causing chaos without other races reminding them of bothersome things like consequences. Hammerhand attracted a lot of attention and was soon surrounded by a mob of goblins.

“Are you invading us?” a goblin asked.

Hammerhand smiled. “No, little one, I come for help. Summon your king, for his aid is needed in a most important task.”

The goblins huddled together and spoke in hushed tones before sending one of their members running into the ruined city. He came back shortly with the King of the Goblins. William Bradshaw the War Winner was famous among goblins and infamous with most everyone else for being competent and leading his goblins to victory time and again. He was also so bland looking that few people realized how dangerous he was until it was far too late. It was only his uniform that gave others pause, with black pants, a black vest, a green shirt, black boots, a black hat with a green ribbon, black gloves with green fingers and a cape black on the outside and green on the inside. No one else on Other Place dared wear those colors.

“Hi there, Will Bradshaw at your service. So, you mind telling me what this is about?”

Stubs looked down and stepped in front of his king, a man he’d never met before but held in high regard for helping goblins. Ashamed and afraid, he set down his prized scabbard and drew the cursed sword out. Goblins cried out in fear and backed away when they saw the awful thing, its face howling as the purplish long sword dripped black acidic ichor on the ground. There was a thin crack running down the length of the sword, but otherwise it was intact.

“I took this from a bad man and threw it off a cliff. It survived and an even worse man found it. My friend Finny threw a magic gem at it that blew up. That’s where the crack came from. Hammerhand hit it a bunch of times with his hammer. The magic sword Sworn Doom even hit it. But it’s still here, dripping nasty stuff and making faces. We can’t break it and we can’t get rid of it without someone else finding it, and when that happens it hurts people. We don’t know how to stop it. You help goblins when they’re in trouble. Can you help?”

Will studied the foul sword as it snarled at him. He pointed at a large boulder and gestured for the others to join him. He picked up the sword and carried it to the boulder, and then unhooked a fire scepter from his belt.

“Hey there,” he said to the scepter. There was a tiny fire salamander residing in a fire opal at the scepter’s end. It looked at him and waved. Will pointed at the sword and said, “I understand this sword is evil, which is a case of truth in advertising if ever there was one. I’m also told it can take a beating and keep going. But it’s never met you. You think you can help me break it?”

The salamander grinned and rubbed its tiny hands together in eager anticipation. Will held up the sword and pointed his scepter at the blade. The sword scowled at him and poured out more acid.

FOOM! The scepter blasted the sword with white hot flames. The fire poured out in a torrent that never seemed to end. Goblins looked away from the blinding light and backed away. When he finally stopped the sword remained, but it was so hot it was white. Will set it on the boulder and told Hammerhand, “Try now.”

Hammerhand unstrapped the barrel of beer from his back and grabbed his hammer with both hands. The sword saw him coming and screamed as he ran at it. The ogre bellowed a war cry and swung his hammer with all his might.

BANG! The sword shattered under the blow. White hot bits of metal flew in all directions and started fires where they landed. Goblins hurried to put them out and brought back the hot bits of metal. They no longer dripped acid, and the foul screaming face was gone from even the shattered pieces.

Hammerhand put one of his hulking hands on Will’s shoulder. “I’m sorry we had to bring our problems to you. You have my respect for helping us. Tomorrow I must return to the Guild of Heroes, so today we celebrate. Drinks are on me!”

The goblins cheered and danced around the broken pieces of the sword, and Stubs and Finny joined in. Stubs felt better than he hand in months, for a great weigh and responsibility had been taken off the little goblin. He smiled and laughed, dancing until he fell over.

Finny helped him up. “You okay?”

“I’m better than okay, I’m happy! It took forever, but at last it’s over.”

Goblin Stories XXIX

“Of all the ways this could end, this is the dumbest,” Finny said. He picked dirt from between his toes as he waited for the battle to start, marveling at the mindboggling stupidity of it all. “Two groups of people, mostly sane, are about to run straight at each other with swords, spears and other pointy bits of metal. Whoever doesn’t die at the end is the winner, except the Fallen King’s men plan on going to more fights.”

“It does make you doubt the intelligence of mankind,” Stubs agreed.

It was a sunny morning, warm and pleasant, and in total contrast to the madness that was about to happen. Two of the strangest armies ever to appear on Other Place were gearing up for a fight that would destroy one of them and possibly both.

On the high ground to the east was a peasant army led by Julius Carton of the Guild of Heroes. They were allied with the army of the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua, who had hundreds of dangerous men, women and unidentified things. Soldiers from Duke Warwick, a small clan of ogres and various unaffiliated goblins had joined them. Coming from the west was the Fallen King and his army of deserters, thieves, bandits, pirates and whoever else he could recruit from bars and gamboling dens, along with a single hag (one was bad enough). The two armies weren’t especially large or powerful. The allied army numbered just over three thousand, while the Fallen King commanded seven thousand. Neither army was particularly well armed. Truth be told, both sides were nearly broke, with Julius struggling to feed his army and the Fallen King’s men bordering on starvation.

Julius and his followers did have a few small advantages. They’d taken the high ground and made trenches and wood barricades, while their goblins had trapped anything on the hillside that didn’t move. Men had cleared the brush and small trees away so enemy forces couldn’t infiltrate their lines. Lastly, and this was the most important, their camp contained every bite of food for forty miles. This meant their side got to eat while the Fallen King’s men didn’t.

The goblins were hunkering down on the west side of the barricades. They were more tolerated than welcomed by the others, so they kept to their own company. Most goblins would have fled long ago, but this bunch wouldn’t. Some stayed out of shame, others obligation, a few from anger, while a couple were just too stupid to know how much danger they were in. The goblins included Finny and Stubs, Campots and Thipins, Brody and Habbly, with Little Old Dude’s students. Little Old Dude Himself was nowhere to be seen, nor was Ibwibble the Terrifying. Those two had disappeared last night, and while some thought they’d run away, the goblins knew better.

Stubs and Finny stood near the barricade, watching the Fallen King’s army approach. Stubs no longer carried the magic gem they’d brought here. He’d passed it on to a wizard named Sebastian Thane to use and keep it from exploding. The gemstone was temporarily quiet, but was full of magic and dangerously unstable.

“You see that little bird over there?” Finny asked, and pointed at a sparrow picking through the weeds. When Stubs nodded, he said, “When things get scary he flies away. I don’t see why the humans don’t run away, too.”

Habbly, a dirty goblin wearing a red shirt, watched the Fallen King’s men approach in the distance. “There are too many people here to get them out it time, especially if they’re carrying food and supplies. If they run they either leave all their stuff behind and starve, or get caught while they’re running and fight anyway.”

Stubs asked him, “Why isn’t the Fallen King going around us?”

“Julius has the food they need to stay alive. They win this or they’ll be too weak from hunger to take the next town. If they pass us by anyway, Julius can send out raiding parties to hit them at night or pick off stragglers.”

“Not exactly a winning strategy on Julius’ part, since we might not win,” Stubs said.

Habbly shrugged. “It’s fight them now when they’re hungry and tired, or do it later when they’re fed and had a chance to recruit more men.”

Finny gripped his empty scabbard and peered at the Fallen King’s men. “I thought the Fallen King had more guys.”

“Way I hear it, they tried to take over Cronsword and got beat instead. That was a big loss, but they took smaller hits before that and afterwards,” Habbly said.

Defeats both small and large had taken a toll on the Fallen King’s army. They’d never been high caliber soldiers, nor well armed, but weeks of marching and days without food made them worse. The goblins could see even from this distance that the men were thin and moved slower than they should. The bandits and thieves were caked in dirt and dust. There were no battle cries as they neared, no pounding of drums, just a slow march.

Finny leaned against the barricade and frowned. “I’m not getting this whole ‘army’ thing. You’d think the habit would have died out years ago after everyone who tried it got killed.”

“Sometimes you don’t have a choice,” Habbly told him.

“I want the rope back when you’re done,” Campots pleaded with Thipins. The two goblins were arguing next to two goblin catapults they’d built last night. Their construction used up all of Campots’ rope and left the poor goblin miserable. The rickety contraptions weren’t nearly as large or powerful as human made siege engines, but they were the best goblins could make.

“You’ll get your rope and as much as we can steal from the enemy,” Thipins promised as he cranked a catapult arm down. He had a few buckets of rocks to fire, along with a live skunk he’d adopted days earlier and called George. George was being a good sport about the whole thing, largely because he thought he was a pet and not ammunition.

“I bet a small green frog that both catapults rip themselves apart with the first shot,” Brody said. The blue goblin was staying clear of the catapults on the off chance they might take out spectators when they self-destructed.

“Don’t jinx him,” Habbly said.

More quietly, Brody asked Habbly, “You’re the expert. What are our chances?”

Habbly studied the enemy army with eyes that had seen years of needless fighting. “Don’t ask.”

“Weren’t both of you hanging around Julius Craton?” Finny asked Habbly and Brody.

Brody looked ashamed. “The others told us to leave. They didn’t want us to get hurt when the fighting starts.”

Finny gripped the top of the barricade. “It’s starting.”

The goblins hurried over to the barricade and watched. The scene was both confusing and alarming as the Fallen King’s army began to climb the steep hill. It was slowing them down and tiring them. A few men set off traps and were thrown back into the men behind them, but their army forged on.

“It’s like they’re not thinking,” Finny said. “They’re going to get killed if they keep coming!”

Brody squinted as someone stepped in front of the enemy army. “Or we are. It’s the hag! Hit the ground!”

The Fallen King’s hag stepped in front of the enemy army and chuckled as she raised her arms, one healthy and the other a withered, blacked wreck from her fingertips up past her elbow. Men, goblins and ogres alike took cover, many diving into trenches. The corruption spread further up the witch’s arm as she cast a spell. The air turned black as pitch around her and then reached out like thick, pulsating tentacles. Moments later those repulsive limbs stretched high into the air and came down across the hillside.

The ebony limbs raked the ground, ripping apart barricades and setting off traps. A whole row of peasant spearmen was knocked over like bowling pins. Two tentacles went straight for Julius Craton.

Brody’s eyes went wide in horror. “No!”

Julius Craton drew the sword Sworn Doom, the sword bellowing, “Doom!” He hacked through the first grasping tentacle, chopping off fifteen feet from the end. The severed piece flopped around on the ground like a fish on land before it boiled away into a noxious cloud. The second tentacle tried to strike him from behind and lost twenty feet as he cleaved it apart.

“Did I ever thank you for giving him that sword?” Brody asked Habbly.

“No.”

“Thank you.”

The hag screamed in pain, and the remaining tentacles withered away as fast as they’d grown. She gripped her ruined arm and cursed so loudly the goblins could hear it. The Fallen King’s men hesitated, but she swore at them and pointed up the hill. The enemy came again and left the hag to recover. They went up where the hag’s tentacles had cleared them a path. With no traps to worry about, they climbed the hill faster.

“We spent days making those traps!” Thipins screamed. “Covered pits, dung lobbers, trip lines, a work of art destroyed in seconds. That woman has no respect for craftsmanship!”

Stubs looked down and shook his head. “A shameful loss.”

Thipins loaded his two catapults with rocks and the skunk. He petted the skunk and said, “It’s for a good cause, George.”

“They’re not in range yet,” Campots said. “Give them a minute.”

The goblins tensed as the two armies neared. The Fallen King’s forces howled and swung their weapons in the air as they closed the distance. The defenders rallied as best they could after such a horrible attack. For a moment it looked like the peasants would run, but Julius Craton moved to the front rank. The goblins couldn’t figure out why, but that was all it took to keep them from fleeing.

“Supper time!” The goblins turned around to see Dumple and his fellow cooks coming with all the food they could carry. They’d loaded wheel barrels with pots of goblin stew, the foul concoction killing grass ten feet away with its fumes. Dumple smiled and wheeled the feast to the waiting goblins.

“What are you doing?” Brody asked.

“With this foolishness about a war and people getting killed, we figured you’d all like some hot food beforehand,” Dumple explained. “Honestly, just because everyone’s going to die is no reason to skip a meal. We brought plenty for everyone, so feel free to have second helpings.”

Human troops stayed well back from the goblins for a variety or reasons, but now they had a new one. Peasants and soldiers alike gagged at the stench of the goblin stew. Many of them backed away. Thipins watched their reaction and told Campots, “Dump the rocks and let George go.”

With that Thipins ran over and commandeered the wheel barrel Dumple had brought. He pushed it to the waiting catapults and grabbed one of the pots.

“That’s a bigger portion than I’d intended,” Dumple said. His confusion turned to shock when Thipins loaded the pots into the catapults. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“Fire one!” Thipins firing one catapult while Campots fired the second. Two pots of goblin stew flew through the air and landed in the enemy’s left flank. The pots knocked over a few people when they landed, but more importantly they dumped their contents over a wide area. Men screamed in horror at the stench. Thipins pulled back the catapult’s arm and shouted, “Reload!”

“No, stop!” Dumple begged, but other goblins held him back as his stew was loaded and fired. Two more pots went into enemy lines, and two after that. The first catapult broke down, actually firing it’s own arm over the barricade, but the second held together long enough to fire the last pot before it came apart. Gallons of goblin stew splashed across hundreds of feet as the pots rolled down hill and emptied out. Dumple watched his lovingly prepared food splattered over the enemy, not a drop eaten. The poor goblin fell to his knees screaming, “Oh the humanity!”

The goblin stew proved more effective than flaming oil. Men pinched their noses closed and squeezed their eyes shut. They tore off any piece of clothing that had the foul stew on it. They would have thrown up except their stomachs were empty. Large patches of grass died and turned black. A full thousand men stopped their advance, and as one they ran away.

An enemy leader tried to rally his men. He grabbed a soldier by the collar and dragged him up the hill, screaming for the others to follow. A few men did. Just then they triggered the last trap left on the hill and the only one to escape the hag’s attack.

Carefully cut strips of sod flopped aside as the buried trap dumped a thousand gallons of liquid filth. Ibwibble the Terrifying had carefully collected every speck of dung and drop of urine from the camp the night before and stored it here. The rancid smelling concoction poured down the hill in a flood of indescribable foulness that washed over the enemy up to their knees. That was the last straw. The enemy was already nauseous from the goblin stew, and this new assault was too much. Goblins cheered as men fled in disgust. The Fallen King’s army lost its entire left flank before the two sides had even met.

Finny laughed and jumped for joy, shouting, “We did it!”

“Then why are the rest still coming?” Brody asked.

The goblins stopped cheering. The Fallen King had lost a thousand men, maybe more, but the other six thousand continued their advance. They were spread out over such a large area that most of them were too far away to see what had happened to their left flank. Ignorant of the loss, they continued up the hill.

Finny rolled his eyes. “Only humans could be this stupid.”

* * * * *

Julius Craton watched in amazement as the Fallen King lost a large portion of his army. The odds were still two to one against, but Julius had a lot of talented and experienced men on his side. More importantly, he had ogres.

“Hammerhand!” Julius shouted. The young ogre ran over with a gleam in his eyes, excited by the prospects of battle. Julius was going to give an order when he smelled alcohol on the ogre’s breath. “Are you still drunk from yesterday?”

“Never! I’m drunk from this morning. They brew a fine beer in these parts, and there’s plenty of it.”

Julius pointed at the fleeing enemy and said, “The enemy left flank is retreating. Take the ogres and Duke Warwick’s men, and lead them down the hill on the left. Ignore the deserters. Swing right and hit the enemy center.”

“Magnificent!” Hammerhand ran back to his fellow ogres and explained the plan. The best warriors Julius had charged down the hill in a line, an easy feat when no one opposed them. Before they reached the ground covered by filth, their formation swung like a door and hit the exposed enemy center in the side. They were badly outnumbered, but the move caught the enemy off guard. Enemy troops fell back and got jammed together so close that they couldn’t fight.

But the enemy still pressed on. The right flank still didn’t know what was going on with the left and center part of their army. A competent commander could have issued orders with horns or flags, but the Fallen King didn’t use either. His army kept coming, ignorant of their losses or at the very least not reacting to them.

“Where’s the hag?” Julius asked. They were minutes away from the enemy hitting their broken defenses. She’d done a lot of damage with only one spell, and a second could cost them any chance for victory.

Witch Hazel was to Julius’ right, along with Sebastian Thane. They were his best chance to stop the hag, no easy task, and one made worse when she could take cover in the still swollen ranks of the enemy.

Witch Hazel pointed to the army’s center. “There! She’s casting a spell. Stop her!”

Witch Hazel cast a spell and tried to turn the hag into a newt, while Sebastian Thane created flaming serpents and swarmed them over the hag’s legs. Enemy soldiers around her ran off to keep from being hit by their spells or her retaliation. A wave from the hag dispelled both attacks, and her response rocked the army.

Gouts of black flame shot up from the ground, blasting through the trenches and barricades. The defenses burned away in seconds as men scattered in terror. The flames died back, and black, horrifying, oozing things as big as men slithered up from the holes burned in the ground.

Julius hacked apart the nearest abomination, and then a second. They screeched and melted when they died, but the rest were converging on him. He took down a third one and saw a peasant impale a fourth with his spear.

“You can’t stop all of me,” one of the things croaked.

Another slithered closer. “I hate you. I hate everything you stand for, you judgmental, self righteous, stubborn fool. You’re no different than the men who spurned me!”

Julius ducked a clumsy attack and dispatched another abomination. “They’re talking like they’re one person.”

Witch Hazel cast a spell and flattened one of the monsters. “They’re extensions of the hag’s will. Stop her and we stop them.”

Julius saw more of the horrors slither up from the ground. “Do it fast, because she’s making more.”

Sebastian paused, a frightened look in his eyes. He’d brought the magic gem with him inside a pocket. He grabbed it and pointed it at the hag. He knew only a few spells and none of them strong. Tapping into the gem’s stored power might make his spells powerful enough to stop the hag. But the gem was so unstable that using it could release too much energy and make it explode. Pointing the gem at the hag, he told the others, “Back up.”

The gem lit up as Sebastian drew on its energy. Grass burst into flame around him. The gem grew hot as it magnified his meager spell. Sebastian trembled and gritted his teeth. His skin turned red and hot to the touch. “It’s too much!”

Witch Hazel stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the energy coursing through him and threatening to overwhelm him. She began chanting, and while took all her strength, she redirected the excess power back into the spell he was casting.

Sebastian gasped and passed out from the strain, but only after finishing his spell. The gem flashed and seven flaming serpents poured out of it, each one fifty feet long and five feet wide. They hesitated a moment and looked at Sebastian, then turned their gaze at the hag’s nightmare creations. Two serpents spent themselves burning away the monstrosities. They spit out blindingly hot flames and destroyed them all, then faded away. The other five turned their attention to the hag.

“Garbage magic magnified is still garbage,” the hag said. She cast a spell and formed a black wall of howling faces around her.

Two serpents flew through the air and rammed the black wall, one after another. The first nearly burned through before spending all its power, but by the time the second struck the wall had recovered and blocked it as well. The hag staggered under the attack, and the corruption spread further. Her entire left arm was ruined, and her shoulder blackened and withered.

The other three serpents rose up together and flew at the hag as one. She braced herself for the attack, knowing the cost she would have to pay for surviving it would leave her even more horrible than before. She might not have any normal flesh left.

“So be it,” the hag said. “Let my body match my soul, tortured and lost.”

“I’d stick with ugly,” a voice said.

The hag looked down and saw a plug of ground two feet across pop up behind her. Little Old Dude and Ibwibble the Terrifying climbed out. Together with Little Old Dude’s students, they’d laced the hillside with tunnels and hidden entrances the night before, and this one was the closest to her. Little Old Dude pressed a button on his cane and extended a short blade.

“You made your choice, Madeline, so I have no pity for you,” Little Old Dude said. He stabbed her in the foot and Ibwibble kicked her in the shin, minor wounds but enough to break her concentration. She cried out in pain as the two goblins retreated underground. Minor as the injuries were, the magic barrier weakened and fell without her focusing on it. The three flaming serpents struck and unleashed their fury in torrents of fire. With their power expended the three serpents vanished. Nothing remained of the hag except bad memories.

Back at the top of the hill, Julius told Witch Hazel, “Get Sebastian out of here. The rest of you, form a line! They’re almost on us!”

Witch Hazel grabbed Sebastian by the heels and dragged him back to their camp. She escaped seconds before the Fallen King’s remaining men reached the crest of the hill and attacked. Thousands of screaming, wild eyed, foul smelling men went headlong into the defenders. Julius Craton’s army staggered under the assault, their line bending backwards.

In the chaos of the moment, no one noticed that Sebastian had dropped the magic gem when he’d passed out. It landed in the short grass and began to hum.

* * * * *

The two armies crashed into one another in a confusing melee. The Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua’s forces held their own against a thousand enemies. Julius Craton’s peasants were being pushed back, but it was a slow retreat and not a rout. Ogres and Duke Warwick’s crack troops continued their flank attack, running riot through the enemy’s center and rear.

Goblins ran through this chaotic mess, ducking between knots of men and dodging the few enemies who saw them. There weren’t many goblins, and they were far weaker than their enemies, but they came on regardless of the risk, slipping through the armies like salmon going upstream.

Little Old Dude came back above ground and tripped an enemy with his cane and watched the fallen man get trampled by his own side. “Sloppy.”

“You want some of this?” Ibwibble the Terrifying ran through the enemy army and stomped on people’s feet. Most goblins would have called it a good day with defeating the hag. Ibwibble wasn’t most people. He kicked two men and punched a third. “I got some for you, too!”

Enemies tried to stab Ibwibble, but their long swords and battleaxes were hard to use in the tightly packed crowd. Two men accidentally hit each other trying to get the little goblin. The other goblins were equally hard to fight in such close quarters, allowing them to do damage far greater than their small size suggested.

Most of the goblins split up or were separated, but Stubs, Finny, Brody and Habbly stuck together. They worked their way through the mass of humanity, striking enemies only when they had to. They had a far greater goal than mere victory.

“Where’s Julius?” Brody asked. He ducked under an enemy sword and kept moving.

Finny pushed a man over in his way and followed the others. “He was in the middle somewhere. Can’t he handle this himself?”

Brody tripped over a fallen enemy and the other goblins helped him up. “The men around him are just farmers. Magic sword or not, he’s not going to make it through this without help.”

The others looked dubious at Brody’s claims, but Habbly backed him up. “It’s more than that. Craton has been in too many fights, too much stress. Come on, guys, you can see it in his eyes, the way he looks when he thinks no one is watching. He should have been retired years ago. He puts on a good show, but he’s at the breaking point.”

Finny backed away from a crowd of spearmen that ran by and nearly ran him over. More enemies followed, but to Finny’s surprise they were running away. He saw a crowd of ogres rush after them, the furry beasts battering aside anyone in their path and singing drunkenly.

“Hey, I know some of those guys,” Brody said. “They’re brewers from the town of Killrith.”

One ogre was so drunk he slipped and fell over, landing on one of the Fallen King’s men. The ogre laughed and got up while the man stayed on the ground and groaned. Stubs rolled his eyes and said, “That’s why beer and armies don’t mix.”

The ogres’ charge left an opening in the enemy ranks. Brody ran into it after Julius, and the other goblins followed.

The noise from the fighting was unbelievable. Men shouted and screamed. Swords clanged as they struck armor. Wood shields splintered and spear shafts snapped. Officers shouted orders, but few could hear them.

An enemy saw Brody and tried to stab him with a pickax. Brody ducked right and the pickax went deep into the soft ground. Habbly kicked the weapon’s handle and broke it while Stubs and Finny tripped the man. Down but not out, the enemy struggled to his feet and punched Finny, knocking him down. Habbly hit the man just below his ribs and forced the air from his lungs. He staggered and fell, allowing the goblins to flee.

Finny scrambled across the ground, trying not be stepped on in the process. A man tripped over him and cursed, knocking Finny to the ground again. He got up to his hands and knees, and that’s when he saw a faint light in a patch of grass. Finny crawled over, heedless of the fighting around him, and found a most familiar and unwelcome sight. It was the magic gem he and Stubs had delivered to Sebastian Thane. It hadn’t been glowing like this when they handed it over, and the hum was louder. “Oh no.”

“Finny!” It was Stubs and the others. They helped him up and tried to lead him away, but Finny dug in his heels and pointed at the gem. Brody and Habbly didn’t grasp its importance, but Stubs did. “Oh come on! How many times do we have to get rid of this thing?”

“If I’m right, just once more.” Finny grabbed the gem and yelped. He sucked his fingers and then wrapped the gem in the edge of his shirt so he could safely hold it. “It’s hot and making noises a rock shouldn’t make.”

“I think it’s going to blow up soon,” Habbly said.

Finny stared at the magic rock, now a weapon instead of a treasure. “That might not be a bad thing.”

* * * * *

Julius Craton fought with his back to a tree deep in his own camp. His forces had been pushed back so far that he’d been left behind. He was barely holding his own, and help was nowhere in sight. The Fallen King’s men were on him like a swarm of flies, coming in from all directions. They suffered terrible losses at his hands but kept coming, many of them pushed forward by the men behind them.

“Come on, lads, we win or we die!” an enemy officer shouted. He charged Julius and swung his rust sword in a clumsy swing. Julius blocked the attack with his long sword and stabbed at the officer with Sworn Doom.

“Doom!” The men following him backed away as their officer fell to his knees and then on his belly. Glowing brightly, Sworn Doom said, “It’s not an either or question. You come at Julius Craton, and you die. Not a hard concept to grasp.”

Julius gasped for breath. The brief lull as the enemy held off was welcome. Sworn Doom’s bravado aside, he was exhausted. The fight had gone far worse than he’d thought. The Fallen King’s army had lost so many men that they were no longer a threat to any but the smallest of villages, but they weren’t running. Any commander worth his salt would have pulled back long ago to save his men and try again later. Why was the Fallen King staying in the fight?

“You.” The word came out like a death threat. Julius saw the Fallen King himself join the fight. He wasn’t a sight to impress, with dirty, bloodstained clothes, messy hair and a tangled beard. But the magic sword he held made up for any personal deficit. The purplish black long sword dripped black ichor that burned the ground it landed on, and a face on the blade moaned and scowled.

“You illegitimate halfwit!” the Fallen King roared. “You dare stand against me? You don’t even know your father’s name, and you’d pit yourself against the son of a king? The gall. The audacity for a fool like you to face his better in combat, it staggers the imagination. What made you think you’d win? What drunken delusion made you think you stood a chance?”

“Because he’s been putting idiots like you in the ground for fifteen years,” Sword Doom replied. “And for the love of God, get that gore drenched perversion of a sword to stop drooling!”

The Fallen King stared at Sword Doom. “What?”

“Yeah, that’s right, you spoiled brat, you’ve met your match! You’ve got some nerve bragging about being royalty. This is the best you could do? Rally an army of losers and idiots, and send them to their deaths? And I wasn’t joking about your sword. Get it under control or someone’s going to do it for you!”

“He has a bit of a temper,” Julius explained. He stepped away from the tree and toward the Fallen King. To his credit, his enemy didn’t back up. “I’ve been fighting monsters like you for half my life. I’ve heard all the excuses why they do horrible things, how it’s their right to rule or how noble their grievances are. But that’s all they are, excuses. You’ve ruined half the Land of the Nine Dukes, and they had nothing to do with you losing your throne.”

Moving closer, Julius continued talking. “None of this was necessary. You could have gone on to great things, king or not, but instead you destroy everything, the same as your sword. You’ve even destroyed your own army.”

Shocked, the Fallen King turned around and looked at the battle raging behind him. On the top of the hill he had an excellent view of the ogres and Duke Warwick’s infantry as they went through his forces like a scythe. Men ran for their lives, yet found nowhere to go as they were pushed into other formations. Those men who’d fled the goblins’ olfactory assault were still running and would soon reach the horizon. The Fallen King brought seven thousand men to this battle and had less that two thousand left.

“No,” he said. His eyes darted left to right. The peasants were still falling back, but this proved to be a blessing as the army of the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua finished fighting their enemies and came to help. With the peasants in front of them and hundreds of battle hardened fighters coming at them from behind, the Fallen King’s remaining men panicked and tried to flee. No reinforcements came, for the few men remaining in his army’s center were trying (and failing) to hold back the ogres and infantry.

“I wondered why you didn’t order a retreat, or send men to stop the ogres before they attacked,” Julius said. “It just hit me; you never commanded an army before, have you? You’re not issuing orders with flags or horns and you don’t have a reserve. You just threw these men into battle.”

The Fallen King was silent, but his mouth gaped like a fish out of water.

“You did a good job raising your army,” Julius conceded. “With enough training and good officers they would have been a threat equal to any I’ve faced. But you just sent them in, no plan, no support from the people, no goal other than burn it all. You may be the son of a king, but you’re no general.”

“They failed me,” the Fallen King said. “Victory was within reach and they failed me.”

“It’s over,” Julius told him. “Order your men to surrender and their lives will be spared.”

The Fallen King’s sword howled, and he raised it to attack. “I will not be a prisoner. This hill shall be my grave, but it shall be yours as well! My bodyguard, to me! No retreat, no surrender, no mercy!”

Julius raised his sword in time to block the Fallen King’s first swing. Black ichor splashed from the blade and burned where it landed. Julius brought down Sworn Doom on it. The two magic swords flashed when they hit. Acidic ichor flowed in torrents when Sword Doom struck, but neither sword was damaged.

“Low born cur!” the Fallen King bellowed. He swung again and missed, his blade spraying ichor with every attack. “What right do you have to judge a king? What do you know of my pain, my loss?”

Julius blocked a swing with his long sword. He stopped the Fallen King’s blade, but the black ichor pitted his sword so badly it snapped off at the hilt. Julius lashed out with Sworn Doom, but the Fallen King dodged the shorter weapon.

The Fallen King kept up his attacks ruthlessly, his misses splashing acid across the ground. Wild eyed, he screamed, “Do you even know my real name?”

Julius blocked another swing and struck the Fallen King a glancing blow. “I don’t care. No one does.”

Twenty of the Fallen King’s bodyguard caught up with him after breaking away from the ogres. They crested the hill and moved to encircle Julius. He saw them coming, but while the Fallen King’s army was falling, help was still minutes away. He couldn’t run without the Fallen King striking him in the back. He blocked another blow and took a deep breath. This was going to be bad.

* * * * *

Finny led his fellow goblins across the battlefield. The crowds thinned out as more men fled or fell. They saw a panicked enemy soldier throw down the Fallen King’s standard of a crowd dripping blood, then try to run away. He would have escaped except the ogres trampled him on accident. One ogre stopped to apologize before returning to the fight.

Stubs pointed to the crest of the hill, where the fighting still raged. “Finny, it’s Julius. They’ve got him surrounded!”

The four goblins went to save him, quite possibly the world’s least inspiring rescue attempt. They reached the top of the hill in time to see Julius and the Fallen King trading blows. But this was no duel of equals, for the Fallen King’s bodyguards were joining in.

It wasn’t the decisive move it could have been. The Fallen King’s sword continued spraying acid with each swing, drenching the ground with black ichor. Grass and broken barricades dissolved when splashed with it. The bodyguards tried to attack and stepped on the contaminated ground by accident. Men cried out in pain and leapt back, then pulled off their boots as the acid ate through the leather.

Julius pushed forward and forced the Fallen King back to the edge of the hill. His armor was smoking where acid droplets were burning through. A bodyguard attacked him from behind and nearly hit. Julius grabbed the man with his free hand and threw him into the Fallen King. Two more bodyguards charged in.

Finny watched in horror at the sword he’d once thrown away. It was awful, destroying everything it came near as it poured out acid. Why would the Fallen King touch such a thing, much less keep it?

The gem in his hands began to hum louder, and the pitch grew higher. How long until it went off? Hours? Seconds? There was no way to tell, and no one to fix it with Sebastian gone. Finny didn’t know how bad the explosion would be, but Sebastian had cautioned him to stay back fifty or sixty feet in case it went off.

That’s when everything fell into place in Finny’s mind.

Finny pointed at Julius and screamed, “Guys, roll him down the hill!”

Stubs, Brody and Habbly ran into the fight, pushing over a bodyguard and kicking another one in the shin and they slipped in. They reach Julius as he and the Fallen King crossed swords again. The three goblins shoved the Fallen King out of the way and grabbed Julius by the legs. Julius didn’t have time to react before they pulled hard and sent him down the hill. He cried out in surprise as he and the three goblins tumbled down the slope and rolled over several fallen men and knocked down two enemies still standing. They stopped a hundred feet away when they hit the ogres.

“Just the man I was looking for,” Hammerhand said as he helped Julius up. “Come to join the fun?”

With Julius safe, Finny ran toward the Fallen King and his bodyguards. Julius’ bizarre escape momentarily caught them by surprise, and Finny went unnoticed. He spotted a patch of black acid on the ground, a puddle three feet across and still steaming as it ate through the topsoil. Finny threw the gem as hard as he could onto the acid and then dove off the hill after his friends.

Confused, the Fallen King looked down the hill. He heard a strange noise behind him and turned to see the magic gem in the acid. It’s humming turned to a scream as the gem dissolved, and its light became blindingly bright.

“What the—” he began.

BOOM!

The explosion threw men to their knees across the battlefield as a purplish light flashed across the hilltop. Tons of dirt was thrown two hundred feet into the air before raining down. The ground shook and cracked in places from the force of the blast. The Fallen King’s sword screamed as it was thrown into the sky by the blast and landed point first in a boulder, driving it in up to the hilt.

The few of the Fallen King’s men still standing gasped in terror as they realized the explosion had struck where their master had been. Some threw down their weapons and tried to flee while others surrendered and begged for their lives. Julius’ peasant army and the followers of the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua were just as surprised by the blast. Stunned by the blast and their enemy’s sudden collapse, they took enemy prisoners but didn’t follow those fleeing.

Julius walked back up the hill with Hammerhand, the other ogres and the goblins. He reached the top and found a crater twenty feet deep and forty feet wide. Stray bolts of magic arced across the crater like lightning, a last remnant of the gem’s stored energy. Smoke rose lazily into the sky and the air smelled of charred wood.

There was no trace of the Fallen King except his sword, jammed in a rock and howling in frustration.

“Wow,” Julius said.

Hammerhand put an arm around Julius’ shoulders and smiled. “That’s got to be the biggest and strangest win you’ve ever pulled off. How did you do it?”

“I’ll tell you when I figure it out myself.”

Goblin Stories XXVIII

It’s an irony that you can often smell armies before you see them, especially if they’ve been in one place for a while. It’s not a pleasant odor. Thousands of unwashed bodies plus the stink of the trash and dung they generate is noticeable for miles when the wind is right. Pleasant smelling flowers and grass get trampled into mud, and smoke from cooking fires never stops when there are so many mouths to feed.

That’s how Finny and Stubs knew they’d found the right place.

“Now that is a lot of people,” Finn said. The red skinned goblin clutched his empty scabbard tightly, worried that a soldier might try to steal it. There were gold decorations on the black lacquered scabbard, so it was a legitimate concern. Finny’s clothes were ragged before his long march here, and were even worse now.

Stubs kept his head down as he surveyed the army before them. The small digger goblin wore equally ragged clothes over his tanned and dirty skin, and carried a lantern and ornate wood box. The two of them were under cover behind some scrub trees a mile from the camp. They’d avoided several armed patrols to get this far, and another one was coming their way.

“This is the place, all right, but is the guy we need here?” Stubs asked. He held up the wood box that contained a terrifyingly dangerous magic gem they’d stolen months earlier. “These guys are supposed to have a wizard. If he’s here we can palm off the gem and let them use it to beat up the Fallen King. If not we have to keep looking.”

“I still don’t know who’s in charge of this bunch,” Finny told his friend. “Everyone we meet gives a different name. Julius Craton, The Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua, Sworn Doom, Duke Warwick, the King of Spain, it keeps changing. I want to make sure we’re not giving this rock to someone worse than who they’re fighting.”

“Is that even possible?” Stubs asked.

The Fallen King had been rampaging across the Land of the Nine Dukes for months, robbing, burning and otherwise making a nuisance of himself. A person could walk for miles without seeing a house left standing, a fact the two goblins knew from personal experience. Thousands of men followed the Fallen King regardless of his needless violence or perhaps because of it. The man didn’t seem to have a goal besides making sure there was nothing left behind him.

Finny looked down, ashamed. “Can they help fix my mistake?”

Stubs put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You didn’t cause this. You threw away that bad magic sword. It’s not your fault the Fallen King found it.”

“If I hid it, he would have never found it. If I gave it to someone—”

“Then they might have done the same thing with it,” Stubs told him. “Keeping the sword was too big a responsibility for us. We’ve been running and hiding ever since we got this magic rock. If we’d kept the sword the same thing would have happened, maybe worse since hiding a big sword is harder than a small rock.”

“A small rock that would like very much to explode.”

Stubs frowned. “It hasn’t blown up so far. It’s gotten a bit warmer, it vibrates and it started humming yesterday, but there have been no explosions. ”

“One explosion would be enough.”

The army, or possibly armies, they were watching included a wide assortment of people. Roughly half were peasant farmers armed with scythes, pitchforks, hammers and makeshift spears. They were getting training from men and women in armor, but it was questionable how much they could improve in the short time they had. There was a smaller group that was more varied, with men, women, monsters and even a few goblins. They were busy building a stockade fence around the camp. A third group was arriving only now and consisted of soldiers flying the red and orange flag of Duke Warwick. There were only two hundred of them, but the dukes’ soldiers were a tough lot and experienced after years of constant fratricidal fighting among the dukes.

The good news was there were so many people that Stubs and Finny stood a good chance of sneaking in unnoticed. The presence of other goblins, who weren’t being chased off for some reason, only made that easier. Unfortunately someone in that hodgepodge army knew what they were doing, for they were on high ground with all nearby cover cut down. There were guards everywhere, attentive ones at that. Finny and Stubs would be seen coming in.

“We could wait until dark,” Stubs said.

“The sooner we find their wizard, the sooner he can study the gem and do something with it,” Finny said. “I see people going inside the camp. We can pretend we’re with them.”

The two goblins walked nonchalantly toward the camp. Goblins were seldom welcome anywhere, but this appeared to be an exception. That being the case, pretending they belonged was a good way to sneak in.

On their way over they came across a green skinned goblin wearing mud caked clothes and digging a pit trap. He muttered with each shovelful of dirt, saying, “Decades wasted, my audience and admirers chased off by a king who can’t stand up right. Maybe some other goblin would put up with this, but not Ibwibble the Terrifying!”

“Hi, we’re—” Stubs began.

Ibwibble threw down his shovel and shouted, “There’s got to be a law against that! You don’t scare off a guy’s audience! If somebody has the gumption to become a force for chaos and annoyance, then by golly he deserves a little respect!”

“Do you have a wizard?” Stubs asked.

Ibwibble checked his pockets and a full rucksack next to the pit trap. “Sorry, fresh out.”

“Is there a wizard in your army?” Finny clarified.

“Oh, him. Yeah, blond hair, young enough he doesn’t shave often and real popular with the ladies, the poor kid. Last time I saw him he was in the mess hall.”

A gray skinned goblin walked up to them with a small mob of goblins following behind. He stopped and said, “Ibwibble. Still shooting for fame?”

“Little Old Dude,” Ibwibble said with respect. He looked at Finny and Stubs before saying, “I spent a year learning from him.”

Little Old Dude took a shovel from one of his goblin followers and climbed down into the pit with Ibwibble. He addressed his students and said, “Watch closely, because this is a complicated trap, and I don’t want any of you getting killed before you pay me.”

It was tempting to see what the other goblins were going to do, but Stubs and Finny were on a time limit. The Fallen King was on his way, and his army would be here in a matter of days. That meant they had to get the magic gem into the wizard’s hands as soon as possible if he was going to do any good with it.

The two goblins had only gone a short distance before they ran into a squad of guards. The humans were armed with spears and wood shields, and they looked worried. A guard stepped in front of the two and said, “Halt, state you name and affiliation.”

Thinking fast, Stubs pointed at Ibwibble and said, “We’re with him.”

That may have been a mistake, because the guard’s face turned red and he scowled. “Then you can tell you boss that he’s not welcome anywhere near the latrines! I don’t know what he wanted that filth for, but he dripped gallons of it on the ground when he took it. And for the love of all that’s holy, he’s to stay out of the stables! Whatever he did in there, the horses are still spooked, and it’s been three days!”

“We’ll pass that right along,” Finny promised.

The two goblins went into the camp, trying hard not to be noticed or stepped on by larger people. They ducked into a tent when they saw a man in armor walk up to greet Duke Warwick’s soldiers.

“Sir Julius Craton,” a foot soldier said. He and his men saluted.

“Just Julius,” Craton said. “I’m not a knight or nobleman, so the sir isn’t necessary.”

“The sir was earned long ago,” the foot soldier replied. “Duke Warwick sends his regards, and that my men and I are to follow your commands as if they were his own. Whether this road leads to death or glory, we’ll follow it at your side.”

Julius shook the foot soldier’s hand and led the men into the camp. “I can’t guarantee glory, and we’ll see what we can do to avoid death.”

Stubs leaned over to Finny and said, “I think they’ve got this taken care of. Maybe they don’t need us.”

Finny looked down at his scabbard. “I need to be here.”

The two hurried along until they found a large barn that had been turned into a mess hall. A double row of long tables and benches reached from the front of the barn to the back, enough to seat a hundred people at a time. Cooks struggled to bring food fast enough to feed everyone. The fare was modest, bread and boiled vegetables with a few eggs to go around. No one complained at the meager meal. Indeed, there was a lot of chatter as people gossiped and occasionally even laughed.

Finny pointed at a bald goblin with turquois blue skin sitting next to another with messy hair and spikes jutting from his shoulders. The bald goblin was beside himself and his friend was trying to comfort him.

“My rope, gone,” the goblin lamented. “Every inch of it used.”

“I needed it for catapults, Campots,” the other goblin told him.

A woman in armor sat across the table from them. “Is he ever going to stop babbling about his rope?”

“It’s a thing with him, okay? He needs rope.”

Finny and Stubs hurried to the other goblins. They might know where the wizard was, and would me more likely to answer questions than the humans. Before they could ask, a young human woman dressed in a flimsy black outfit sat down at the same table.

“Hello there, Vasellia. I thought I’d chat with one of the ladies in this army, but since there aren’t any I’ll settle for you. Eating with goblins? Does everyone here put up with them?”

“Witch Hazel,” Vasellia said through clenched teeth. “I’m putting up with you because I have to, but I have limits. Don’t mistake tolerance for acceptance.”

“Ooh, touchy. Menopause must be coming early.”

Before Vasellia could go for her sword, Finny came up and asked, “Excuse me, I’m looking for a wizard I can borrow for a little while. I heard you have one.”

Vasellia answered before the goblins could. She frowned and said, “Sebastian? What do you want him for?”

“I’m surprised he’s not here,” the goblin with spikes said. “I’ve never seen him more than ten steps from Vasellia.”

Witch Hazel smiled. “I see you like them young.”

Vasellia slammed both fists on the table, silencing the room. “Shut your mouth before I shove a fist in it!”

“This is a bad time, but we really need him,” Stubs said.

Vasellia glared at Witch Hazel, who smiled back. The swordswoman said, “It was puppy love and that’s it. He’s over it and flirting with that Questor girl.”

“Oh, you missed your chance,” Witch hazel teased. Her smile changed from mischievous to seductive when she saw Julius Craton come into the mess hall. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s something I’ve been meaning to do. I might get killed tomorrow, so I’m having fun tonight.”

Vasellia grabbed Witch Hazel by the wrist before the witch could leave the table. “Oh no you don’t! I was getting somewhere with him when we were fighting the pirate lords, before my fool employer tried to kill us both.”

“About that wizard?” Finny asked.

Witch Hazel tried to pull free and couldn’t. “You had your chance, you blew it. It’s someone else’s turn. Now let go of my arm before I turn you into a newt.”

Vasellia had her sword out in a flash. “Bring it on, tramp.”

The two of them overturned the table and ended up wrestling on the ground. Men ran over to watch the fight while all four goblins scurried under tables. Julius Craton ran over and pulled the women apart, no easy feat even for a hero.

“What started this?” he demanded.

Stubs and Finny left the mess hall while the swordswoman and witch hemmed and hawed. The other two goblins joined them outside.

“Now that we’re free of homicidal humans, can you two tell us where to find this wizard?” Stubs asked.

“What do you want him for?” Campots asked.

Finny stepped forward and said, “Because I did something bad and I need to make it right. It’s my fault the Fallen King has his magic sword.”

“He has a magic sword?” the goblin with spikes asked.

“One that drips black slime and eats through things like acid. I threw the sword away and he found it. Stubs and me found a magic gem with oodles of power, but it needs a wizard to use it. You’re fighting the Fallen King. You have a wizard. He can use the rock to beat the Fallen King and make everything right again.”

The other goblins exchanged nervous glances. Campots said, “Um, yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

Finny grabbed Campots by the shoulders. “You have to help us!”

Looking even more miserable, Campots said, “We can take you to Sebastian, no problem, but he can’t use your magic rock. He’s a kid with a bit of talent and that’s it. You need a tougher wizard than him.”

“There are no other wizards!” Finny shouted. “We’ve looked. There weren’t many in the kingdom to begin with, and most of them ran away. There’s only two left, yours and a guy called Olimon living in a town called Castaway on the coast. We couldn’t reach him with the Fallen King’s arm in the way. It’s Sebastian or nobody.”

The spiked goblin put a hand on Finny’s arm. “We’ll take you to him, but don’t get your hopes up.”

The four goblins scurried off in the growing camp. Duke Warwick’s men made themselves at home while a band of ogres came in. The hulking, furry beasts were armed with clubs, and their musky body odor was noticeable fifty feet away even in the army’s stink. There were only thirty of the boisterous ogres, but they were worth five times their number in infantrymen. The goblins tried to steer clear of the incoming ogres but nearly got trampled by them.

“Watch your step, high pockets!” Stubs shouted. The ogres came to a halt moments before stepping on Finny. A smaller ogre in the lead bent down to study them.

“More goblins came,” he said in surprise. “You little ones usually avoid wars, yet you’re coming by the score to this one.”

A larger ogre stepped up and poked Stubs with his meaty finger. “Amazing! Even goblins yearn to fight alongside Craton. You’re small and yet you still seek battle, proof even the meek and weak are drawn to one so great.”

“Is that what’s happening?” Finny asked Stubs.

“Let’s go with that.” Stubs smiled and said, “That’s right, we came to sign on for the good fight. Leave us a couple guys to hit when the fighting starts, okay?”

The ogres burst out laughed. The larger one said, “I love it! Loudlungs, this is the strangest war I’ve ever fought, in, but by God it will be a thing of glory when we’re done. Let us eat and drink, and drum into the night so the enemy may know who they face in the morning.”

Shocked, Finny asked, “In the morning? I thought we had days.”

“Hunger and hate drive the enemy like a horse being whipped,” Hammerhand Loudlungs replied. “All sources of food have either been burned or harvested and brought here. The enemy can’t rest without the delay making them weaker with hunger. They know we’re doing this and hate us even more than they did before. The Fallen King must attack us to seize our food supplies or his army will starve before it reaches the next town he could loot.”

The larger ogre leaned down and put a beefy hand on Finny’s shoulder. “Be strong, little one. The battle ahead will test you, but you will come out stronger for the challenge.”

With that the ogres headed deeper into the camp, laughing and singing the whole way. Worried, Finny turned to Stubs. “I thought we’d make it here in time to help.”

“We still might be able to do good.” Stubs looked to the other two goblins and said, “Please, take us to your wizard.”

The four goblins worked their way through the growing crowds of peasants, soldiers, ogres and other beings. Few armies were as varied as this one, but for the most part there was no fighting. They eventually reached a small house set deep inside the camp.

“Here’s your guy,” Campots said. He opened the door to reveal a young man with blond hair and wearing expensive (although damaged) clothes sitting on a bed. He was reading a scroll and muttering as he ran a finger over the text.

Finny and Stub’s hearts dropped when they saw him. All the stories they’d heard about wizards were that they were old, crotchety men who wielded vast power and a fair bit of wealth. But this wizard, this boy, looked like he still had problems with acne! How much power could be command when he couldn’t legally buy a beer?

“Sebastian, these guys say they need to talk with you, and I need all the rope you’ve got,” Campots said.

Sebastian set the scroll aside and looked up. “Campots, as much as I appreciate you breaking me out of prison, I can’t give you something I don’t have.”

“Can’t you magic some up?”

“It doesn’t work that way.” The young wizard turned his attention to Finny and Stubs, and he smiled. “I’m sorry, but I’m rather busy preparing a scroll for tomorrow’s battle. We can talk after we’ve won.”

“Optimist,” Campots grumbled.

Stubs approached the wizard. If the man needed goblins to save him then he was pretty weak, but the selection of wizards was limited. Stubs held up the ornate wood box and opened it. The gem glowed so brightly it up the house with it’s radiant light, and it made a soft hum like cicadas singing.

“Oh. Oh my.” Sebastian took the box from him and looked at the gem in awe. “Where did you find this?”

Finny shrugged. “There was this elf wizard, and something about trees and dwarfs and magic. Most of it didn’t make sense and we forgot the rest. The important thing is this thing is supposed to have gobs and gobs of power. The elf said he could make something really nifty with this rock.”

Sebastian set the gem and box onto the bed and cast a spell. Glowing symbols appeared in the air and rotated around the box. The symbols started out red and turned purple, then began to pulse like a heartbeat.

Sounding worried, Sebastian asked, “This is an awkward question, but how long ago did you, ah, borrow this?”

“Two months?” Finny asked Stubs.

“Two and a half tops,” Stubs replied.

Sebastian cast more spells and made more strange symbols rotate around the box. “I must say I am amazed.”

Excited, Finny asked, “Really?”

“Really. You two should have been blown up weeks ago. This gem is carrying a power load easily five times higher than should be possible. If I ever meet this elf wizard I’ll shake his hand, assuming he hasn’t accidentally blasted it off. The danger involved in making a power receptacle like this is enormous, and even with constant reinforcing and containment spells, which it hasn’t been getting, it’s a fifty-fifty chance it would go off like a bomb when you tried to use it. You might want to stand back.”

The four goblins edged away. Sebastian cast more spells and looked up at them. “I meant fifty or sixty feet back. Farther would be better.”

“But can it make rope?” Campots asked.

“It can’t make anything!” Sebastian shouted. He cast four more spells and the humming died away. “That should stabilize it for a while, but your gem is going to need constant supervision until I can bleed off enough power to bring it to a safe level.”

“Can you use the power you take from it?” Finny asked. He sounded desperate.

“Yes, but only a little. Taking out too many magems at once risks releasing all the power in an explosion. I can use the power contained here to cast one additional spell per day for the next fifty days.”

Panicking, Finny cried out, “That’s it? The elf said he could make a weapon out of this, a good one like when the elves ruled Other Place!”

“Maybe he could, but I can’t.” Sebastian stared at the gem the same way a man would watch a poisonous snake. “If the gem wasn’t so degraded, and I had another twenty years training, and a fully equipped wizard’s lab, with insurance, maybe I could use the power constructively. As it is, the gem is going to be a danger to everyone around it for months to come.”

“It’s useless,” Finny said softly. His shoulders slumped and he looked down. “It’s worse than useless.”

Sebastian closed the box and stood up. “Magic is difficult to tame and easy to lose control of, and not nearly as powerful as people give it credit for. You meant well, friend, and some good can come from the gem, but it’s not going to win the war. I’ll keep it under control for now.”

Stubs and Finny left with the other two goblins. They walked to the edge of the camp, away from the army but still close enough to hear and smell it. Finny leaned against a wood barricade and then slumped to the ground. Stubs sat next to him and gave his friend a pat on the back.

“We tried,” Stubs said. “That’s got to count for something.”

“I thought I was setting things right,” Finny said, his voice just above a whisper. “I made things bad for so many people when I threw away that bad sword, but I was going to fix it. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you mess up. Humans do, and elves and dwarfs and trolls, the good ones, anyway. But I keep making things worse.”

He looked out over the mass of people waiting for tomorrow’s battle, most of them frightened except for the ogres who were doing drum solos and getting incredibly drunk. “All these people got together to fix my mistake. I wonder how many of them will still be here tomorrow night.”

Witch Hazel walked over and joined them at the barricade. She was sporting several bruises and a tear in her outfit (which amazingly stayed on), but she seemed in good spirits nonetheless.

“I was wondering why you two wanted Sebastian, and he showed me the magic gem you gave him,” she said.

“That’s from us,” Finny said. “Don’t suppose you can make it work.”

“Lord no. That’s a mess I don’t want to get involved in. I was going to ask you some questions about it, but after what I heard on my way over, I think I need to say something first.”

The witch stepped in front of Finny and looked at him, her expression hard to read. “The Fallen King is not your fault. He was building an army long before he found his magic sword. Getting it didn’t change his goals or make his army grow faster. The sword makes him more dangerous, but it’s not powerful enough to make his army any tougher.”

She reached out and lifted up Finny’s chin. “The Fallen King decided to do evil. Ten thousand men made a conscious choice to follow him. You had no control over that any more than I did. People came here and are risking their lives to stop the Fallen King, and you’re one of those brave people. Be proud.”

It was a truly inspirational thing to say, and far better than they expected from a witch, but the whole thing took on a sour note as Witch Hazel covered her mouth and nose with her hands. She made a gasping sound and tried not to throw up, then ran away, crying out, “Oh God, what is that?”

Stubs sniffed the air but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “That was weird. All I smell is dirty socks, manure, smoke, a grease fire and a touch of burnt rat hair.”

“And good quality rats at that!” Finny and Stubs turned around to see three goblin chefs cooking a vat of goblin stew. A rotund goblin smiled at them and beckoned for them to taste the vile concoction. “Dumple at your service, and this is Fumes and Mask. You two look like you’ve had a hard time. There’s one surefire cure for a bad day, and that’s a double helping of hot food! Help yourself before it eats through the pot or explodes.”

Stubs’ jaw dropped and he drooled. Helping Finny to his feet, he said, “Hey, this is a classy war they’re throwing! Fine dining and all you can eat to boot!”

“There was a boot, but it went in the pot,” Dumple told them. “Watch out for the laces.”

Goblin Stories XXVII

“The key to winning any battle is to make the other side look stupid,” Little Old Dude explained to his student. “A person is capable of amazing things and making enormous sacrifices if they believe in their cause. You need to make them doubt themselves, doubt their companions, doubt what they’re fighting for and why. You need to insult them, belittle them, humiliate them and if absolutely necessary hurt them. Once that’s done they don’t try nearly as hard and are easy to beat.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this ‘beating the enemy’ thing,” Cackler replied. “It sounds dangerous enough that you’d cash in your life insurance afterwards.”

“Beating them doesn’t mean killing them,” Little Old Dude clarified. “If the enemy deserts or retreats then they’re beaten. He might come back some day, but that gives you plenty of time to prepare even more devastating insults.”

Little Old Dude and his newest student were hiding in a deep forest. Night was coming fast and this would normally be a safe place to sleep, but they were in danger. The Fallen King’s army was heading for another clash with the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua’s army. To get there his men had to travel through these woods and cross a bridge over a wide gorge with a raging river below. Joshua’s army had been retreating for weeks and wasn’t ready for another fight.

They would be ready soon, though. Julius Carton of the Guild of Heroes was merging his small peasant army with Joshua’s forces, ogres had volunteered to help, and Duke Warwick was sending soldiers as well. Together they weren’t that impressive, but at least they’d stand a chance. The various sides were still gathering and couldn’t face an attack. Little Old Dude was here to make sure they wouldn’t have to.

Goblins scurried through the forest, hard at work preparing their ambush. All of Little Old Dude’s followers and students were on the job for the last two days. Goblins with hammers and picks swarmed over the bridge, barely visible in the distance, while still more were busy in the forest. They had no hope of stopping the Fallen King, but a delay of a few days would be enough.

“Mark my words, it’s going to be insults that wins this fight,” Little Old Dude said with great authority. He was a gray skinned goblin with outrageously long eyebrows and mustache, wearing only trousers and sandals. Little Old Dude had a trick cane fitted with extendible blades, and a bag filled with tools. Few goblins accomplished what Little Old Dude had in his long life, and fewer still understood why he’d even bothered. But while many goblins doubted his sanity, to a minority of truly crazy and determined goblins he was a role model, the goblin who’d humiliated kings and turned back an army.

“This is where preparation pays off,” he told Cackler. “Set traps everywhere, but it’s just as important to learn all you can about the enemy. Everyone has weak spots, topics they have no defense against. When you meet the enemy you, hit them with insults and don’t stop! Don’t pull your punches, either. If they’ve got daddy issues you hit them there until they’re sobbing like little girls who didn’t get ponies for their birthdays.”

Cackler tried to keep the faith, but this was a hard pill to swallow. The little goblin wore a blue trench coat and hat, with boots and gloves that left little skin visible. He had a whip, a backpack full of tools and an unlit torch. Cackler had ben reasonably successful puling pranks and irritating people before coming to Little Old Dude for further training. He considered himself capable of handling most foes, but not who was coming this way.

The Fallen King had suffered losses recently, not heavy ones, but they were costing him. Goblin scouts had confirmed that the spoiled rich boy had lost his temper and sent in his hag to clear the way. Cackler was willing to face men, but a witch who’d walked the dark road to become a hag was someone even heroes feared.

Little Old Dude saw his hesitation. He gripped Cackler’s arm and said, “The hag is no different. She’s strong, but she can fall.”

“We’ve set traps for her, but this woman scares kings,” Cackler said. “She’s cursed the land itself and killed everything growing on it, twice!”

Little Old Dude took a piece of paper from his bag and held it like a weapon. Cackler had his own sheet of paper, covered front and back with insults for the coming battle. Between them they were armed for a battle of words this world had rarely seen. But could words stop a hag? “We’re armed with something she can’t stop, a word she can’t face. Let her throw curses and black magic. I’m counting on it.”

One of Little Old Dude’s followers ran up and reported, “She’s here.”

“How many are with her?”

“One man, and he looks scared.”

Little Old Dude gestured for Cackler and his follower to leave. “Go to your positions. Wait for my signal and we’ll stop the hag in time for breakfast.”

The other goblins scurried off into the sparse undergrowth. Little Old Dude waited patiently for his enemy to arrive. He’d overseen the placement and construction of traps in the forest, and at the risk of sounding smug he’d done a good job. There were only a few ways the hag could come at him, making matters easier. More importantly, she was confident in herself. She’d march right in, certain of victory because of her powers, and that would make her an easy victim.

The hag didn’t make him wait long. He saw her and the lone soldier approach on a poorly maintained trail, the poor soldier carrying a lantern and drawn sword. The man had no armor and looked scared. In contrast, the hag was as haughty as he’d expected. She wore a black dress and flowing cloak, and came unarmed. She kept her right arm wrapped in her cloak.

The pair was a quarter mile away when the hag stopped on the trail. She cocked her head to one side and chuckled. “The dark spirits see you, goblin. They name you as The Great Annoyer. They taste your misplaced pride, your weakness, your pettiness. Darkness can’t help you, for it hides nothing from me.”

“Petty words from a pretty girl, or at least a girl who used to be pretty” Little Old Dude called back. “You’re not the looker you used to be.”

The hag laughed in response and pulled back the hood on her cloak. The lantern’s light showed her as a woman of stunning beauty, with long hair black as raven feathers and a face that would make a man’s heart race. Her hourglass figure was impressive, too.

“You have high standards for someone who eats carrion.”

Little Old Dude slipped between trees, gradually moving south. “And you’re real selective of what you show. I hear bad things about what you’ve done to your arm.”

The hag paused and her smiles faded. “Complain about the thorns on a rose if you will, rodent. The years have caught up with us both. You weaken with each season, depending ever more on your rancid followers. How long until your reputation dims? How long until no students come to do your bidding and your followers leave you?”

“Can’t happen fast enough,” he retorted.

“You wish to be alone?” the hag asked. She headed south, a leisurely walk with the man following at her heels. “I know loneliness. I know loss. I know what it feels like to go from being adored to being ignored and held in contempt. The love of others fades no matter what they say.”

Little Old Dude grabbed a rope and pulled hard. A net weighed with rocks fell from the trees and landed on the hag. She screamed and tore at the net while the man tried to help her get it off. She ripped the net to pieces, but to do so she needed to show off her right arm, clawed, wrinkled, blackened and so very powerful. From the elbow down it was a nightmare, like it was grafted on from a dead body. The man screamed when he saw it and ran.

“Stop,” she ordered. The man froze in mid step. “You swore to your King that you’d serve me. To others those are empty words, but to a hag they are a promise that must be kept.”

The hag got off the last bits of the net and held up her ruined arm. “Is this what you wanted to see, vermin? Did you want to see what my powers have cost me? I sacrificed my health for revenge on the world! Every spell I cast spreads the corruption further! I knew this from the start, from before I walked the dark road, and I welcomed it!”

“So,” Little Old Dude began, “you’re an idiot.”

“Burn!” Black flames shot from the hag’s right hand. The flames were strong enough to burn through two trees, but Little Old Dude was far enough back that the flames didn’t come close. She followed up with more blasts of cursed fire that cleared a full acre of the forest.

“Wow, she’s got issues,” Cackler called out from deep in the forest. That earned him two blasts of black fire, but he was even farther back and in better cover. “How much did that one cost you?”

Little Old Dude hurried to the next set of traps. Timing this would be hard, but Cackler could keep her busy if she got too aggressive. He ran into a foxhole and grabbed another rope. He also checked the piece of paper with his half of the script.

“Drama queen!” Cackler shouted.

“We got the invitation to your pity party,” Little Old Dude said. “We passed on it the same as the rest of the world. Pack up your attitude and go find someone cares, you narcissistic halfwit.”

That stopped her in her tracks. The hag’s jaw dropped. Little Old Dude followed up with a sting of abuse even he was proud of.

“Goblins are supposed to be stupid, but you’re so dumb you threw away your life to get even! Bad things happened to you. News flash, everybody gets dumped on some time or another. You could have packed your bags and tried your luck somewhere else. No reason you couldn’t move on when I’ve done it a dozen times. But no, you threw a hissy fit and turned yourself into a walking advertisement for bad decisions. I get even with people all the time, and I do it without costing me my arm, my looks and my immortal soul. How does it feel being dumber than a goblin, Madeline?”

The hag backed up. “That name means nothing to me.”

“It used to! It’s the name your mom and dad gave you, you spoiled brat. You traded it in for power, and you didn’t even get a good deal! Even a withered up lump of a soul like yours must be worth more than what you got paid.”

“Somebody wanted it?” Cackler called out in the distance.

“Some people like junk,” Little Old Dude said.

The hag tore at her cloak and screamed. She grabbed the poor soldier who’d been sent with her and cast a spell on him. He writhed in agony as black flames poured from his hands. His eyes rolled back in his head and he howled. Transformed into a walking weapon, the man ran for Little Old Dude.

“Same old trick,” Little Old Dude said. He pulled the rope and added, “It was interesting the first time you tried it. Now it’s just lame.”

The rope triggered a trap in front of Little Old Dude. A log ten inches in diameter swung down from the trees like a battering ram, going between two trees and covering the only way the cursed man could attack from. The man raised his burning hands a second before the log struck him. The magic black fires consumed the log front to back and reduced it to ashes. The cursed man resumed his charge, and ran straight into a pit trap. The ground sank under his feet and dumped him into a pit half filled with water. He sputtered and coughed as he tried to climb out, but the very fires that made him so dangerous also made escape impossible, for he burned the ground he tried to grab onto. Time and again he pulled himself up a few feet before the dirt beneath his fingers was consumed and he fell back in.

“People are afraid of this chick?” Cackler asked. “I don’t get it.”

Little Old Dude checked his paper. “Madeline has been living off her reputation for a long time. She used to be big.”

“I’m still big!” she shouted. Scowling, she added, “It’s the battles that got smaller.”

“No one’s buying it,” Little Old Dude said. He hurried over to the trigger ropes for his next set of traps. “You’re counting on us being afraid of you and running off. Ha! Like anyone is going to run from a used up has been like you.”

“Has been?” Cackler shouted. “Try never was. She’s all smoke and mirrors. Any wizard could do what she’s done.”

The hag clenched her teeth. “Your words pale in comparison to the hatred of the dark spirits. Day and night they sing of blood and fire, pain and death! They scream my praise and make the world quake!”

“Not particularly well adjusted, is she?” Cackler called out.

“But well suited to politics,” Little Old Dude replied.

The hag pointed her shriveled arm at him. “Hey, I’ve got standards!”

“Cranky and stupid,” Little Old Due said. “I fought Coslott the Conqueror, you old bat. That guy had an army twice as big as your Fallen King, and better quality men, too. Coslott lost! He was a big deal and now he’s king of a third rate power. If you were smart you’d know the Fallen King is going to end up the same way or worse. Instead you signed on with that fool.”

“That’s like hitching a wagon to a dead horse!” Cackler shouted.

Little Old Dude pulled a trigger rope for a catapult trap. The goblin catapults weren’t very large or accurate, but they were safe from the hag’s earlier attacks hidden in shallow pits. Horse manure flew through the air and splattered across the ground. The aim wasn’t perfect, but a large lump landed in the hag’s hair. She screamed and tried to scratch it out, but that just dug it in further.

That did it. The hag sent streams of black fire into the forest. More catapults fired in reply, missing this time. She drove her right hand into the soft forest soil. A wave of dirt rose up in front of her and rolled forward until it hit the catapults and tipped them over.

“Your dark spirits pulled a fast one on you, hag!” Little Old Dude shouted. “You lose more of your arm every time you use your magic, but you’re getting less power with every spell. Time was you could have fought off an army, but you’re down to petty magic, and it’s still costing you the same. You got swindled every way possible, Madeline!”

“Stop calling me that!” she screamed. “You doubt my power? You think you can face my gifts? I have been lenient thus far, but that ends!”

Little Old Dude kept moving. If the hag really poured it on he was done for. His best chance was to keep her off balance and keep as many trees as he could between the two of them.

“You haven’t been lenient, you’ve been losing!” Little Old Dude yelled back. “This is piddling stuff and you know it. You’re scared, hag. You can’t blight pastures and fields the way you use to. How long do you think you’ll last when it gets out that you’re a push over?”

“I—” the hag began, but her words were cut short when she walked into a trap. This one caught her leg in a snare and pulled her off her feet. She swore and tore the snare apart with her right hand, now ruined two inches above her elbow. She stood up and looked to one side. “I should have seen that? If you saw it you should have said something! I’m tired of getting lip from you.”

“Talking with your imaginary friends?” Cackler asked.

“You bargain away your life and place in eternity, you’d think you’d get quality dark spirits in return,” the hag retorted.

“See, I wouldn’t think that,” Cackler said.

The hag paused and stroked her chin with her ruined hand. “Yes, that should do nicely. Fool goblin, you’ve given me an idea. The dark spirits say the forest is filled with your traps. I’ve no wish to set off another, and I don’t have to. You’re right, I used to blight land, spoiling it so it wouldn’t yield good fruit for twenty years. You think me a spent force? Let me show you what I can do.”

The hag bent down and began chanting. The air grew darker still and smelled foul. Little Old Dude ran for his life as leaves fell off the trees. In seconds a wave of corruption spread from the hag and consumed all around her. Trees died, rotted and fell. Snares, catapults and pie traps crumbled away. Little Old Dude saw a tree about to fall on him and rolled to the left. The tree landed with a thud and turned to sawdust and then dirt. Trees hundreds of years old rotted away under the hag’s spell until none were left. He barely escaped her spell as the forest died.

Now standing under the night sky and lit by the full moon, the hag stood up and smiled. “Satisfied, rodent?”

“Couldn’t be happier.”

There was a crash as the bridge over the distant gully collapsed, a sound that could be heard for miles. The hag looked puzzled and said, “That spell doesn’t affect stone.”

“No, but hammers and picks do,” Little Old Dude said. He kept running from her as he told her, “My goblins have been undermining that bridge for days. They needed a little more time to finish the job, and you were stupid enough to give it to us. I’m sure your friend the Fallen King can bridge the gully by having his men cut down the trees and build a new…oh, wait.”

“You tricked me,” the hag said. “You used me to destroy the forest so we couldn’t cut down trees to span the gully. The nearest woods is two day’s travel from here.”

“And you can’t fill in the gully with rocks and dirt since the river flowing through it would wash away anything you dumped down there,” Little Old Dude said as he continued fleeing. “Which means you’re stuck here and so are your friends when they show up. They’re looking at days of hard labor with nothing around here to eat, all thanks to you. What do your dark spirits have to say about that?”

The stream of obscenities from the hag was memorable, and included some swear words even Little Old Dude hadn’t heard before.

Goblin Stories XXVI

Thipins and Campots the goblins watched their leader, the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua, crawl across the floor toward them as he smiled and made strange noises. In most situations this would be a sign of trouble, but for Joshua this was actually a big improvement.

“Here, Joshua, over here!” Thipins cheered. He waved Joshua’s favorite toy, a teddy bear, to bring his leader over. “Come on, you can do it!”

Joshua pulled himself across the carpeted floor using only his arms. He gave a few kicks of his feet, but that didn’t move him much. Inch by inch he came closer to the goblins.

“Look at him go!” Campots exclaimed. “He wasn’t moving nearly this fast last month.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen half of what he can do,” Thipins assured him. “Next year he’ll be leading men into combat, and maybe even going potty by himself.”

Joshua was all of five months old and doing well for his age, but the infant boy was the victim of title inflation. In the few short months since he’d been become the official ruler of a revolutionary organization, he’d gone from Overlord to Evil Overlord, and now to Dread and Evil Overlord. Plans were already underway to include Tyrannical, Despot, Lion Hearted and Victorious to the growing list.

This didn’t bother Thipins and Campots in the slightest. They even encouraged the madness, for like all goblins they were small and relatively inoffensive. This gave them an appreciation of what Joshua must be going through at such an early age. More importantly, the two goblins were small and would get no larger, while Joshua could only get bigger. There was a chance that he’d grow into the role they’d invented for him.

Joshua was of peasant origins, his parents simple farmers before Thipins and Campots came across them. In a twisted example of goblin logic, the two decided Joshua was bent on world domination and they set off to gather him an army. They succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, and the tiny infant was now the head of a dangerous organization in the Land of the Nine Dukes.

Joshua finally reached Thipins and grabbed the bear with his chubby hands. He pulled it close and stuffed as much of it as he could into his mouth.

“There he goes again,” Campots said. The goblin had turquois skin and carried loops of rope over his ratty leather clothes. “That bear must have done something to deserve getting chewed on like that.”

Thipins shrugged. He had tanned skin and was a bit taller than Campots, with bony spikes jutting from both shoulders. He was always careful to keep those spikes away from Joshua, who had an eat-first-question-later attitude toward life. “You can never tell with bears. I suspect treason, or maybe enjoying opera.”

As nominal ruler of a small army of roustabouts and far larger group of disaffected peasants, Joshua was awarded their finest accommodations. This consisted of a wood house with rugs, simple furniture and a box of toys. Joshua’s parents, who found this whole situation a bit hard to understand, were currently outside discussing matters with Joshua’s subordinates. Thipins and Campots had snuck in to play with their ruler while everyone else was busy.

“He’s just not going to give that bear a chance,” Thipins said. “If this keeps up he’ll take off a leg.”

“The bear had it coming,” Campots replied. “You do not pick fights with a Dread and Evil Overlord no matter how cute he is.”

Thipins tried to pull the bear away from Joshua, but the baby was having none of it. He smiled and pulled harder until the bear’s right arm was back in his mouth. “Does this qualify as solid food?”

“Not sure.” Campots peered out the window. “Lots of noise outside. Something’s got the guys excited. I see Smile and Iron Fang rallying the troops.”

Thipins rolled his eyes. “Not another fight!”

“No, they’re not drawing weapons. I think it’s some kind of meeting. It might be about that Ann Marie Quester girl. She’s drawing a lot of attention from the guys. They keep giving her flowers for some reason. No idea why, but she’s complaining a lot about it.”

“That’s typical of teenagers.” Campots turned his attention back to Joshua. “Diaper still clean?”

“Cleanish.”

Campots kept looking outside. Partly this was so they’d have advance warning if Joshua’s parents came back. Neither of them liked having goblins around their young son and chased Thipins and Campots out when they found them. But there was a far more serious reason for concern.

The Fallen King, sociopath, disgraced prince and overall bad apple was on the march, rampaging through the Land of the Nine Dukes with his army of deserters, thieves, bandits and other affiliated scum. He’d clashed with the Dread and Evil Overlord Joshua’s forces several times and won every fight. It was a matter of quantity over quality, since he outnumbered his enemies ten to one or more. Joshua’s forces had fallen back time and again, and they were running out of places to run to.

“I’m worried about Joshua,” Campots said softly. “I think we may have done a bad thing putting him in charge. The Fallen King has got it in for the little guy.”

Thipins kept his eyes on Joshua, smiling and stroking the baby’s head. “Nothing’s going to happen to him. We won’t let it.”

Playtime was interrupted by two new goblins entering the room. The first had blue skin and hair, and wore nothing save swim trunks. The second carried a mop and had brown hair tied into a long braid, and he wore a red shirt under his dirty leather clothes.

“Ooh, new recruits!” Thipins exclaimed. “We haven’t gotten any new guys since Ibwibble the Terrifying joined. Howdy do, boys.”

The blue goblin shook his hand, but said, “We’re not joining your army.”

“It’s not so much an army as it’s a club dedicated to world domination,” Thipins told him. “We’ve got good benefits.”

“Pass,” the other goblin said. “We came with Julius Craton, and he asked us to look for somebody named Joshua.”

“That’s him gumming the teddy bear,” Campots said.

“No, the Joshua in charge of this place,” the blue skinned goblin said.

Thipins pointed at the baby. “Same guy. We haven’t got any more Joshuas, but if you come across another we’d be happy to take him.”

The two new goblins looked to one another, their expressions worried. The blue skinned one asked, “How does a baby run anything?”

“He doesn’t.” Campots put an army around Joshua and explained, “Joshua is currently what we like to call a figurehead. If you’ve got an army you need someone in charge, in spite of what the Barrel Wrights seem to think. Joshua is that someone. Some people might take exception to him being so small. We get around that by keeping him in the background. Nobody meets him in person, just representatives like Iron Fang, so nobody complains.”

“Give him a few years and he’ll grow into the role,” Thipins added. “Until then the others do the talking and he bids his time.”

Outraged, the blue goblin shouted, “How could you put a baby in charge of an army, figurehead or not?”

Thipins picked up Joshua and held him up for the new goblins to see. “Look at that face, those pudgy cheeks, those big brown eyes. Tell me you wouldn’t conquer the world for a kid like this.”

By goblin standards this was a compelling argument, but there was more to it than physical appearances. Joshua didn’t hate anyone. Greedy, ambition and bigotry were equally foreign to him. He loved and he wanted to be loved, nothing more, and to a goblin’s way of thinking that was all the qualifications he needed.

The new goblins hemmed and hawed before the blue one said, “Well, I’d try to.”

“He’s got charisma,” the long haired goblin admitted. “And nothing’s more dangerous than an ambitious baby.”

The noise outside grew louder. Some of the shouting was from Iron Fang with his lisping voice, but there was a new voice arguing with him. “I don’t intend to conduct this discussion with an emissary. The message I carry is for the Overlord Joshua and no one else.”

“That’s Julius Craton,” the blue skinned goblin explained. “We’re helping him not get killed.”

“It’s a full time job,” the long haired goblin added. He turned to the blue goblin and said, “I don’t see this ending well.”

“I don’t see why not,” Thipins said. “Give him a few hours holding Joshua and we’ll win him over.”

The blue skinned goblin looked dubious. “Julius is kind of responsible for the lives of thousands of people. He needs help protecting them from the Fallen King and his army of loonies.”

Campots smiled. “We’re having trouble with him, too! Be fair, everyone’s having trouble with him. That guy is the human equivalent of a skin rash.”

Thipins took a paper from inside his shirt and showed it to the new goblins. “We’re in contact with the Barrel Wrights, another secret, evil organization—”

“They say they’re not evil,” Campots interrupted.

Thipins laughed. “Yeah, right. Anyway, according to them, the Fallen King is polling so low that he’s less popular than taxes, five infectious diseases and lawyer infestations. Somehow his own men haven’t killed him, which I can’t figure out.”

“That’s why Julius is here,” the long haired goblin told them. “He’s hoping that your guys can work with his guys to stop the Fallen King.”

“We’ve got kind of a bad track record there,” Thipins replied.

Julius Craton was talking outside again, his voice rising in anger. Iron Fang and Smile were looking surprisingly nervous given that they had Julius outnumbered dozens to one.

“Kind of funny them not standing their ground,” Thipins said.

The blue skinned goblin didn’t seem surprised. “They’re being smart. People who stand their ground against Julius end up in the ground.”

“I know those guys, they’re tough,” Campots said.

The long haired goblin studied the men facing Julius. “I give them four minutes, five if they run.”

Again they were interrupted, this time by a little girl entering the house. She was only six years old and wore worn clothes that swept left to right along with her long brown hair. Most children avoided strangers, but the girl was fearless and marched right up to the four goblins.

“I want to hold the baby.” Her tone was firm, and she took Joshua from the goblins and sat down to cradle him in her lap. Joshua smiled and laughed as the girl rubbed his stomach. “Tummy rub!”

“Older sister?” the blue skinned goblin asked.

“Neighbor girl, and a social climber if ever I met one,” Campots said. “She marches in here every chance she gets and takes Joshua away from us when we’re playing with him. I don’t know why since she’s got three brothers.”

The girl spared Campots a glance and said, “I don’t like them. They hit.”

Campots kept watching the uneasy meeting outside. “Your friend is meeting with our top guys. Hey, Vasellia the Swordswoman is running over, and she’s smiling. I’ve never seen her do that before!”

“She and Julius have some sort of shared history,” the blue goblin said. “Hopefully that will be enough to calm things down before—”

“A baby!” Julius shouted.

The blue goblin sighed. “Or not.”

“It’s not what it sounds like,” Vasellia told him. “It started out as some kind of mistake with the recruiters. By the time we knew what happened it was too late to change without making it look like we’d had a leader and lost him. Organizing these people was the smartest thing to do, and we couldn’t risk losing it.”

“A mistake?” Thipins said harshly. He patted Joshua on the back and reassured him, “Don’t you worry. You’re in charge on purpose, and you’re staying in charge.”

The little girl pulled Joshua away from the goblins. “You had your turn playing with him. It’s my turn.”

The door opened for the third time, with Julius Craton and Vasellia the Swordswoman entering. Heavily armed and armored, Julius was a man to be feared and respected, which made his puzzled expression so out of place. Julius looked to the new goblins, who pointed at Joshua. The blue skinned one said, “Say hello to the revolutionary in diapers.”

“It pays to start early in this business,” Thipins said.

Julius bent down to take a closer look at Joshua. The girl holding him scowled and said, “You don’t get to hold him. It’s my turn. You come back later.”

Julius frowned and looked to Vasellia. “I’ve got thousands of people barely holding out against a superior force, and the leader I’d hoped to ally with is too young to stand.”

“We’re in the same boat,” Vasellia told him. She took his hand and said, “Alone we’re doomed. The best we can hope for is to weaken the Fallen King so badly he can’t go on to hurt others. Together, we’ll still be outnumbered, but there’s at least a chance we’ll win. Ignore the baby for a second—”

“Watch it!” Thipins scolded her.

Vasellia ignored him and kept talking. “You and I won battles with fewer men than this. We can do it.”

“We have to,” Julius said. He pointed at Joshua and said, “The baby stays here. If you have to keep up the illusion that he’s in charge then do it, but I’m not bringing an infant into this mess for any reason.”

The little girl looked up at Julius and asked, “I still get to hold him?”

“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with alternating weekends,” Thipins told her. “We get to hold him the rest of the time.”

Scowling, the girl clenched her fists. “You take him from me and I’ll punch you in the nose!”

Campots laughed at her. “Oh come on, you’re not going to—she hit me! You saw it, you’re witnesses! I call brutality!”

Goblin Stories XXV

It’s been said that not an hour goes by without a fight in Cronsword, which is only a slight exaggeration. On rare occasions the city is peaceful when it’s too cold to go outside without your fingers going numb. But such tranquil and bone chilling times were nowhere to be had as the Fallen King’s men ransacked the city.

“For the Fallen King!” The cry went up from the entire north of Cronsword as two thousand thieves, brigands, deserters and other affiliated scum flooded the streets. They’d come in at dawn and flooded into the north section of the city. The city’s many gangs fought back but didn’t put up a united front, and one gang after another was overwhelmed. Street after street fell as enemies swarmed in.

Boss Jesseck ran down the alleys of Cronsword with his entire gang of four hundred goblins following him, and they were headed straight for the fighting. Goblins as a rule were cowardly and quick to flee, making Boss Jesseck’s move insane. But small as he was, weak as he was, Boss Jesseck had something to fight for, something he’d risk his life to defend.

“For Cheese Street and cheddar wheels!” he shouted. He swung a club over his head as he ran. Sweat ran down his green skinned face, his captain’s hat was blown off, and mud stained his leather boots and blue pants. His pinstriped coat was torn on the cuffs in the fighting.

The goblins followed Jesseck into battle. They’d won one and lost a second one, when they’d been forced back by overwhelming numbers. Boss Jesseck would have led them home to Cheese Street if he could, but there was no safety there. The Fallen King’s men were smashing through the gangs. Either Boss Jesseck beat them here or the fighting would reach Cheese Street. If that happened its precious cheese factories would fall before dusk.

“Doesn’t seem like this is safe,” a goblin said.

“Seven to one!” he shouted to the goblin. “The gangs outnumber those idiots seven to one, but that doesn’t help if they stand alone. We have to back them up, get the other bosses to work together, or we all fall.”

Here and there the city stayed strong. One group of enemies had gotten as far as Brewer Lane and no further. After looting the bars they were too drunk to stand let alone fight. More of the Fallen King’s men had tried to rob Stink Street and its many alchemists, which even goblins weren’t dumb enough to try. Glue, oil, stink bombs, explosives and a horrid mix of chemical waste rained down from the windows in what had to be the grossest fight ever to take place in Cronsword. But for every street that held two more fell.

Up ahead was Bankers Row. Boss Usema ruled there with a gang of two hundred hardened fighters. Against anyone else that would be enough, but the Fallen King has sent two thousand men to take Crosword. When the full weight of so many men landed on a gang it was like a hammer hitting a walnut.

The fight was already in full swing. Boss Usema’s men had barricaded the cobblestone streets with overturned wagons and were armed with swords, pikes, bows, gaff hooks and clubs. The banks were built like fortresses, with thick stone walls and windows too narrow for even a goblin to crawl through, so they’d hold out as long as Boss Usema could guard the doors. It wouldn’t hold, though, for the enemy was sending a column of men through Fish Way to outflank them.

Boss Jesseck stopped to survey the battle. The goblins stopped behind him, and one asked, “What do we do, Boss?”

It was a fair question. Goblins, even motivated ones, were no match for men. They needed overwhelming odds or some other advantage. If Boss Jesseck led his goblins into this fight he could lose half of them. He spotted downspouts running from bank roofs down to street level, an advantage he could use.

“To the roofs,” he ordered. Goblins grabbed downspouts and climbed thirty feet up to the roofs. The broad roofs had a shallow angle so the goblins didn’t risk falling off, and they were covered with fired clay tiles. Boss Jesseck followed them up just as the Fallen King’s men burst out of Fish Way onto Bankers Row. Boss Usema’s men panicked as swordsmen appeared behind them.

Up on the rooftops, the goblins watched as the Fallen King’s men howled and charged into battle. Boss Jesseck grabbed a roof tile and ripped it off. His goblins followed suit, and together they hurled the tiles onto the Fallen King’s men. Goblins as a rule don’t have good aim, but the streets were packed with enemies that every tile hit. Battle cries degenerated into cries of pain as the clay tiles hit. The enemy attack ground to a halt before falling back in disarray. The attackers trying to breach the barricades also fell back. Bankers Row had held, for now.

Down below, Boss Usema stepped away from his men. The man favored black and yellow clothes, and his sword was nicked up from heavy use. “Jesseck, this ain’t your territory! You weren’t invited and you’re not welcome!”

“That’s a fine thank you!” Boss Jesseck shouted back. “Half the bosses in Cronsword are defeated or running. The rest of us stand together or we fall like dominoes, and a king will rule this city for the first time ever. That what you want?”

“I don’t take help from any man, and sure not from goblins!” Boss Usema shouted. “Shove off and be quick about it, or there’ll be trouble.”

A goblin nudged Boss Jesseck and said, “We’ve got tiles left over.”

“Save them for the ones we have to worry about,” Boss Jesseck said. He turned his attention back to Boss Usema and said, “Not much you can do to hurt us up here, Usema, and you’ll be needing help before the hour’s up. I can see plenty good from up here, and the enemy’s coming back in numbers.”

One of Boss Usema’s men raised a hand and asked, “Is Aunt Jillian’s Sweet Shop okay?”

Boss Jesseck peered into the distance. “Ogres are guarding her store, and they’re not budging for anyone.”

“Everyone loves her cakes,” another man said. Others nodded in agreement.

Boss Usema elbowed the man in the ribs. “I warned you, Jesseck. Bankers Row is mine, and nobody takes it! Not the Fallen King, not the other bosses, and sure as blazes not you!”

“I’m not trying to—”

Fast as lightning, Boss Usema grabbed a bow from one of his men and fired. Boss Jesseck ducked under the arrow, but that made him lose his footing. He cried out in surprise as he slid down the roof and fell to the ground below. Goblins screamed in terror as he plummeted, only to have the street swallow him up before closing again.

Men and goblins alike stood transfixed by the sight. A goblin spoke for both sides when he said, “I don’t think anyone saw that coming.”

Boss Jesseck screamed as he landed on a curling chute in the darkness. He rolled down it, the force of the fall dissipated as he tumbled round and round. He came to a stop in a wide gallery made of stone lit by glowing green orbs set into the walls. Indescribable piles of stuff filled most of the room floor to ceiling, but there was enough space for a person to walk the back of the gallery, where a nightmare of brass and obsidian stood.

“Greetings!” A tall human wearing stained work clothes came out from behind a pile of debris. He was an older man with white hair and a mustache, but it was his eyes that caught Boss Jesseck’s attention. They were the strangest shade of blue he’d ever seen, so pale they almost looked fake. There was a glimmer in his eyes, a sort of madness common to goblins and rare elsewhere, and it told him that this man was capable of anything.

That didn’t bother Boss Jesseck in the slightest. Half his goblins were a little odd in the head, and a fair number were totally out of their minds. That didn’t diminish their value, and the really crazy ones came up with interesting ideas no one normal would consider, like pouring vats of liquid hog waste on invaders.

Boss Jesseck got up and dusted himself off. “Not complaining that I’m still breathing, but I’m a bit confused by the fact. Where am I?”

“Ah, forgive the lack of introductions.” The man marched up and shook Boss Jesseck’s hand. Few men showed goblins such courtesy. “I am Umber Hatchwich, super genius. You are still breathing because you fell through one of my emergency escape hatches. It’s happened a few times this year. This is my temporary abode”

“Might be a bit more temporary than you’d intended,” Boss Jesseck said. He studied the room and found numerous entrances and exits. Umber was a man who wanted to make sure he’d escape danger if he had to, a trait the goblin appreciated.

Umber laughed and headed to the end of the gallery with the hulking nightmare at the end. “That would have been true months ago, possibly even weeks ago, but the son of Kevin and Judy Hatchwich will run no more! No, my hour has come, and soon Cronsword will tremble at the Hatchwich name.”

There was a scream from above as a goblin came down the chute to land next to Boss Jesseck. He helped the goblin up and said, “Don’t touch anything.”

“Two visitors?” Umber asked. He didn’t seem bothered by their presence, but then again, he had little reason to be. The man might not be armed, but if the brass and obsidian monster was his work then swords and bows were unnecessary. “Will more be coming?”

“Can’t make promises, but I think more might come to keep from dying,” Boss Jesseck told him. He waved his hand upwards and said, “Bit of a mess up there. Crazy men with branded hands are running over the city.”

Umber clucked his tongue. “Typical Saturday. That’s why I came down here, you know. Nice and peaceful in the sewers once I bricked up a few passages. Dear mother wouldn’t approve, but it was this or fight off bounty hunters every waking hour. Do you know what that’s like?”

Boss Jesseck looked off to one side before nodding his head. “Been there a few times myself. Never seen anything like this, though. What’s it for?”

“This?” Umber asked. He smiled and stepped aside so the goblins had an unobstructed view of the thing. “This is my clockwork, the work of years to complete and costing a fortune! Technically it would have cost a fortune if I hadn’t stolen the materials, but you get the picture. Decades of learning, training, practicing, experimentation and more than a few risks brought me to this point, where I could make the masterpiece you see before you.”

Masterpiece was the last word Boss Jesseck would use to describe the monster. It was made of brass armor plates bolted together, with carved obsidian sticking out in irregular places. The thing had a chest as deep as a barrel, and a head with brow ridges and a jutting chin. The legs were thick as tree trunks, as were all four arms. It was ten feet tall and stood in silence, its arms folded across its chest. Like Umber it had no weapons, but those huge hands could likely crush the life out of anything smaller than an ogre.

Most people would consider it a perfect time to wet themselves in terror. Boss Jesseck, he saw an opportunity.

“This is the physical expression of my genius!” Umber declared. He threw both his hands into the air and shouted, “Behold my creation, Forewarned!”

There was an awkward pause as the goblins stared at him. Umber eventually said, “You know, Forewarned is four armed. You don’t think it’s funny, do you?”

Boss Jesseck shrugged. “It’s more of a thinking man’s joke.”

“You might be right.” Umber snatched a pencil and sheet of paper from the nearest debris pile. Jotting down a note, he said, “I need to come up with lines suited to different levels of society. But mother would have loved it.”

A third goblin slid down the chute. He got up and looked around before saying, “This isn’t much of an improvement.”

“You said others have come down here before us,” Boss Jesseck said.

Umber nodded. “Two boys and a beggar. I employed them as servants, at very reasonable rates I might add. It was a risk, but mother always said you have to look out for the less fortunate. I’d originally assumed she meant not running them over with your horse, but she corrected my misunderstanding. I rather doubt you’re interested in a job.”

“Already have one, but maybe not for much longer.” Boss Jesseck studied Forewarned. Brass wasn’t the strongest metal, but this monstrosity had thick slabs of the stuff as armor. That would make it a hard one to beat. “Umber, you’ve no reason to listen to me, but I need a favor.”

Umber leaned up against his creation and folded his arms. “Do tell.”

“Cronsword is being invaded and the city could fall. The men attacking us aren’t that tough, but there are plenty of them and they caught us off guard. You and your pet could do a world of good in clearing the streets and saving the city. I figure there’s got to be a reward for your efforts.”

“So you want me to save a city I plan on conquering,” Umber said. “A city that drove me into hiding for being a mad scientist and burned down my house, with my mother’s portrait lost to the flames.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Boss Jesseck admitted. Playing on Umber’s sympathy had been a long shot, but it wasn’t the only way to enlist the man’s help. “If Cronsword falls all the good stuff will be taken before you get a chance to grab it. And the men who did you wrong will be run off or dead, so you can’t get even.”

Umber studied his fingernails. “The counterargument is I do nothing and someone else does my work for me. As a bonus, all sides involved will be too exhausted to resist me when I make my triumphant march of conquest. I take over the city, rename it after dear mother, and begin my reign of enlightened despotism, with a chicken in every pot and a clockwork on every corner.”

“I don’t like chicken,” a goblin said. “Can I have beans?”

“Black, red, kidney or pinto?” Umber asked. “I’m well supplied with legumes.”

“That explains the smell,” the goblin said.

A scream heralded the arrival of another person from the surface, this time one of Usema’s men. The man came down the chute and looked up to see Boss Jesseck glaring at him. “About before, I hope you’re not taking that personal. The boys and me, we were happy to get help.”

“This is getting out of hand,” Umber said. He rubbed his forehead and frowned. “Mother taught me to be a good host, but there are limits to hospitality.”

One of the other secret doors opened, this one far larger that revealed a sloping passage leading to the surface. The Fallen King’s men came down from the surface, where they’d stumbled across the entrance. There were enough of them to make short work of the goblins and unfortunate man. They were not, however, a match for Umber and Forewarned.

“Who the devil are you?” Umber demanded.

Thinking fast, Boss Jesseck said, “They’re with the Fallen King, and they said dirty things about your ma.”

Dumbfounded, the leading attacker could only say,” What?”

Umber’s face turned dark red, not from embarrassment, but from rage. His shoulders shook and he gritted his teeth. “My mother was a saint! Forewarned, attack!”

The brass and obsidian clockwork unfolded its arms. Green light poured from between the armor plates as it lumbered into battle. The clockwork didn’t talk, but made a guttural, growling sound as it lifted its four arms high and brought them down like hammers. The Fallen King’s men screamed and ran with Umber and Forewarned hot on their heels. One man was too slow, and Forewarned grabbed him and hurled him into the rest of the crown.

Boss Jesseck followed them up and shouted to the others, “Come on! He’s tough, but he’s not going to beat two thousand men on his own!”

They ran up the passageway onto the street above, coming out at the edge of Bankers Row. The scene was chaotic with goblins and men fighting against a new push by the Fallen King’s army. The secret passage came out behind the Fallen King’s forces, and Umber climbed onto Forewarned’s back before plowing into them. Goblins and Boss Usema’s men watched in confusion as the clockwork swatted men like flies.

Desperate to keep his own side from attacking their new ally, Boss Jesseck shouted, “He’s with us! Keep those branded idiots from hitting him in the back!”

Hundreds of enemies found themselves trapped between Boss Jesseck and Usema’s forces on one side and Umber and Forewarned on the other. They couldn’t use their superior numbers in the narrow streets. Goblins rained roof tiles on the attackers and Boss Crassok’s gang came running to join the fight. A huge chunk of the Fallen King’s men went under a tidal wave of enraged men, goblins and a single clockwork.

With the fighting over Boss Jesseck fell to the street, too exhausted to move. He was clever and a good leader, but no stronger or faster than other goblins, and he’d reached his limits. Most of the men and goblins did likewise, but Umber wasn’t done. He and his clockwork ran after fleeing members of the Fallen King’s army. Boss Jesseck looked around and asked, “Where’s Boss Usema?”

A man spit on the ground. “He ain’t boss of anything. We kicked him out when he shot at you. We’ll figure out who’s boss here when the fighting’s over.”

Boss Crassok came to the front of his men. He’d fought well in spite of the patch he wore over his left eye. “Saw the fighting and came over. I want this ended before it reaches my territory. We took out a bunch of them, but there’s more to deal with. You ready, Jesseck?”

Boss Jesseck looked out over the city. The enemy was greatly weakened, but there were still fights and a few fires to deal with. If the Fallen King had come with all his men it would have been over with the city in ruins, a depressing thought, and one that made the goblin wonder why his enemy hadn’t committed more men to the fight.

Sore and more than a bit confused, he got up and grabbed his club. “One more time, boys, and everyone gets double rations of cheese when we’re done.”

“Yes, boss,” they chorused.

Boss Jesseck rubbed his sore muscles, and the day was far from over. There was nothing he wanted to do more than go to sleep, but Cronsword could still fall and his followers looked to him for leadership. Tired, aching, he took the lead and muttered, “Being brave sucks.”

Goblin Stories XXIV

“I feel there should be ominous music playing,” Brody said as he, Habbly and Julius Craton walked through the dense woods. Rocks jutted up from the ground as they continued their way up the forested mountains. The trees were large, the kind lumberjacks dreamed of, and the oaks were uniformly healthy.

Their destination was the cause for concern, for they were minutes from reaching the home of Witch Hazel. She was one of three witches living in the Land of the Nine Dukes, and considered the most even keeled of the three. That was faint praise, though, for an even tempered witch was still a witch, prone to being greedy, selfish and not at all above turning people into newts. Women who were fair minded when they became witches seldom stayed that way, and every year a few witches went bad, better know as walking the dark road. It was not a profession noted for stable personalities.

“Oboes,” Brody added. The blue skinned goblin stayed near the edge of the road, watching for threats. “Oboes, pipe organs and maybe chimes would really fit the mood.”

“You’re the one leading us!” Habbly snapped. Once the holder of the magic sword Sworn Doom, Habbly was now armed with a mop. The tanned, dirt goblin wore ragged clothes and a leather vest over a red shirt.

“Under protest,” Brody reminded him. “I’d like to point out that the people who voted for this plan also volunteered us for it.”

“It’s the best of the bad choices,” Julius said. The hero was in charge of the mission to recruit Witch Hazel. He needed Brody to guide him to the witch, while Habbly was coming along out of a sense of obligation. Julius had holes burned in the chest plate of his armor, a reminded of why they needed Witch Hazel. “The Fallen King recruited a witch, and we know firsthand how powerful she is. Our best bet to survive this is to get a wizard, holy man or even a lawyer to counter her.”

“None of whom are within ten days walking distance,” Brody said morosely.

“Which means we need another witch,” Julius concluded. “Witch Hazel might help us, out of self interest if nothing else.”

Brody peered into the dense woods. Direct sunlight didn’t reach the forest floor even at noon, leaving the land in a perpetual twilight. But it was getting late, and the limited lighting they had was fading. They could hear things moving in the sparse undergrowth. The Land of the Nine Dukes didn’t have many monsters, but there were a few left, and they were tough enough that they wouldn’t thing twice about attacking travelers.

“I’d suggest making camp, but that would leave us here even longer,” Brody said.

“We can’t afford the delay,” Julius said. “How much farther is it?”

“We’ll reach her soon.” Brody winced and added, “Assuming her house didn’t move again. She relocates a lot.”

“Avoiding angry customers?” Habbly asked.

“Angry parents,” Brody said. Julius and Habbly stared at him, and the goblin explained, “She’s, uh, friendly with the local boys. Angry mothers have tracked her down and tried to burn her out more than once.”

Habbly pointed at Julius and said, “So when he shows up at her door, she’s going to think it’s another attack.”

“Possibly,” Julius conceded. He’d killed several witches in his career as hero, news that Witch Hazel must have heard. Now that he had the sword Sworn Doom, a gift from Habbly, he was even more dangerous. “The others we could have sent here would have been even worse. I can’t imagine the offensive things Hammerhand would say, and the elf is nearly as harsh.”

Brody stopped and folded his arms across his chest. “You need better friends, and coming from me that says something.”

“The Guild of Heroes is desperate for manpower. We can’t afford to be picky, and both Hammerhand and the elf are good people in their own way. Neither one is at home in a fancy party, or a city, or just about anywhere off a battlefield, but they’ve saved countless lives. I owe them my life ten times over, and would gladly give it to save them.”

Habbly nodded, his eyes hidden by his messy hair. “It’s a better endorsement than most will ever get.”

Brody continued leading them. “Not far now. We’ll find out soon enough if the witch hasn’t moved, if she’s home and if she will help. For the record, this would go so much easier if we had gold. She’s not big on volunteering.”

“All those who are dead broke, raise your hand,” Habbly said. All three of them raised their hands. Habbly blinked and looked at Julius. “Really?”

“The Guild of Heroes is dripping red ink. We’re out of cash, supplies, weapons, horses and pretty much anything else you could name. We’ve mortgaged properties I don’t think we technically own. The guild has taken to hunting bounties on criminals and dangerous animals just to get by. Bills are coming due soon, and bankers could defeat us when armies failed.” They walked on in silence for a moment before Julius said, “I swear, when I joined the guild I never thought I’d spend so much time balancing budgets.”

“People laugh at goblins since we’re poor, but the way I hear it kings and nobles aren’t doing any better,” Habbly said.

Julius stopped to light a torch. “That expression ‘rich as kings’ is a lie. Most of them are in debt as much as we are, sometimes worse. I saw a balance sheet for a kingdom once, and the bankers would have foreclosed except the king had an army.”

“Armies are always good bargaining chips,” Habbly said.

Brody gulped and pointed at a light ahead of them. “She’s in. I always recommend caution, but this time we should be super ultra cautious.”

Witch Hazel’s house was a surprisingly pleasant place. It was made of wood, two stories tall and in excellent condition. There were glass windows, a rarity in the Land of the Nine Dukes, and bright, cheery light poured out of them. Firewood was stacked along one wall and there were herb gardens on two more sides. They could hear a woman inside the house singing in elven, a tune that made Julius blush.

“What’s the matter?” Habbly asked him.

Looking surprisingly nervous for someone who’d faced death so often, he said, “Women in a certain…profession…use that song to advertise.”

Confused, Habbly asked, “What profession?”

“Can we just knock on the door?” Julius asked.

Brody stopped feet from the house and pointed at the doorframe. “Hold on.”

“What’s the matter?” Julius asked.

Habbly peered at the top of the doorframe and said, “It’s a goblin confounding talisman. The dwarf company Industrial Magic Corporation sells them to keep goblins out of buildings.”

Brody walked up to the door and waved for Habbly to join him. “The talisman keeps goblins from damaging a house or entering it.”

Habbly went over and climbed up onto Brody’s back. From there he climbed up the doorframe and grabbed a tin disk four inches across and covered with arcane markings. “Thing is, the talisman has to be on the outside of the house to work, and it protects the house, not itself.” He pulled off the talisman and threw it into the woodpile. “Now a mark two goblin confounding talisman would have kept us out for, what, five minutes?”

“I’ve done it in two,” Brody said as he helped Habbly down. “A mark three, that’s another story. That could take an hour to get inside. I hear the new mark four is supposed to be a real hard one to get around. A guy I know needed five hours to get past it.”

“No!” Habbly said. “Anything over three hours is embarrassing.”

Julius looked down at the talisman and asked, “What do these things cost?”

“Way more than they’re worth.”

Julius stopped to look at the herb gardens. “She’s growing flaming heart, ogre pod and eye of newt. There’s cobra bind and sugar palm for sweetener so you can stomach the rest of this. There’s nothing poisonous. Encouraging news, and I could use some.”

Julius approached the door and raised his hand to knock. The woman inside kept singing, and Julius blushed again. “I could have learned dwarven in school, but no, I had to take elven.”

He eventually knocked, and the singing stopped. A melodious voice called out, “Enter, the door is unbarred.”

“She doesn’t lock her door at night?” Julius asked. The goblins shrugged in reply. Julius took a deep breath and opened the door. It swung open without a sound to reveal the interior of the house being even nicer than the outside. There was plenty of furniture and stuffed chairs upholstered in cotton, a cheery fire in the stone fireplace, plenty of books on ornately carved bookcases and potted plants by the windows. There were several chests and a number of lit oil lamps. The floor was carpeted, and a nice one with an intricate design. A staircase led to the second floor, and the homeowner came down to greet them.

“Well hello,” she said. Brody’s first impression was that the woman was a fool. She wore gold jewelry, so she had money, but her dress looked like she’d run out of black velvet before she finished making it. Nevertheless, she wore the outlandish thing that didn’t cover much of her. Her high boots made no sense when the ground was dry and firm. Her brown hair was so long it brushed against the back of her knees and was bound to get caught in things, including closing doors. The woman was armed and had weapons enough in the room in case of a fight, but the fact that Brody spotted them meant she was lousy at hiding things.

“Witch Hazel, I presume. Pardon the intrusion, ma’am, and at such a late hour, but a situation has arisen that requires me to ask for help,” Julius said. He looked down and said, “I, uh, I’m getting dirt on your carpet. Apologies.”

The witch laughed. “My, my, polite to a fault, mister Craton. And here I’d heard you kill witches.”

“In my defense they were causing a lot of damage, including distributing poison apples.”

Witch Hazel rolled her eyes. “That old routine. You did my profession a favor. I swear we’re never going to get past that whole ‘wicked witch’ thing. It’s a job, and if we expect to get paid we need to get along with the neighbors. I took two public relations classes from the witch who taught me, and I’ve managed to avoid all kinds of problems.”

“Aren’t you cold dressed like that?” Brody asked her.

Witch Hazel’s attention had been on Julius, but she turned her focus on the goblins and screamed, “What are those doing in here? How did you cretins even get in?”

“Your defenses have as many holes as your dress,” Habbly said. “That is a dress, right?”

Brody shrugged. “I thought it was a smock, or maybe an apron.”

Witch Hazel pushed past them and looked outside her house. “I had a goblin confounding talisman above the door!”

“Check the woodpile,” Julius offered.

The witch swore bitterly as she retrieved the talisman and came back inside. She threw it to the floor and screamed, “I paid fifty sovereigns for that thing, and you two just waltz in here like nothing! Out, now!”

“They came with me, and they’ll leave with me,” Julius said.

Taken aback, Witch Hazel asked, “You’re slumming with goblins?”

“They’re friends of mine,” Julius said. There was a firmness to his voice, not confrontational but not yielding an inch, either. “Both of them have proven their loyalty, and Brody led me here.”

Witch Hazel gave him a pitying look. “You can’t be this desperate. They’re worthless, with nothing you need or want.”

Before Julius could speak in their defense, Brody asked Habbly, “You want to start or should I?”

Habbly waved his mop at Brody. “After you.”

Brody took a deep breath and said, “You’re wearing two throwing knives hidden in your thigh high boots, except anyone can see them. The wand tucked in your belt has a crack in it and is black on the tip, so it’s broken and you’re wearing it for show. There’s a trapdoor on the floor and two secret doors on the walls, one east and one south.”

“The middle chest is a mimic,” Habbly said. “I saw it breathe, and it edged forward twice. The lamp nearest to us has a small fire elemental in it. Your belt has three bottles in it, and you’re staying near the mantelpiece where I see two more hidden next to the lamps. Are they potions or bombs?”

“Potions,” she said, her tone more respectful.

“Goblins have a different way of looking at the world,” Julius explained. “Money means nothing to them. They’re not interested in power, either. They’re trying to survive in a world where they’re the smallest race other than gnomes, and their competitors are large and aggressive. What most people see as stupidity is just caution and practicality.”

Brody shook his head. “No, there are a lot of us who are really stupid.”

“Dumb as a bag of hammers,” Habbly agreed. “But not all of us are.”

Witch Hazel put a hand over her face and muttered something before addressing them. “All right, it’s a package deal and I have to put up with them. So, what does the mighty Julius Craton of the Guild of Heroes want, or is that an obvious question?”

Fighting back another blush, Julius said, “I’m facing the Fallen King, a madman in charge of an army of deserters, thieves and other evil men. Bad as the situation is, the Fallen King allied himself with a witch, one who turned a man into a magically powerful and homicidal threat capable of burning through steel with his hands.”

She stroked his fingers across his chest plate. “That’s what did this?”

“Yes. If she did it once she can do it again, or do something worse. We need help, and that’s why I’m here.”

Witch Hazel frowned. “I know the woman you’re talking about. She’s dangerous and walked the dark road years ago. The fool even sold her name.”

Confused, Brody asked, “Sold it to who?”

“That’s an answer that will give you nightmares,” she told him. “I can see your problem easily enough, but this doesn’t affect me. If you want it to be my problem I’m going to need money.”

“I’m sorry to say it will be your problem in a matter of time,” Julius said. “The Fallen King is on the march and will be here soon with thousands of men. When they reach your home they will destroy it for no other reason than to see it burn. Normally you might be able to make a bargain with them, but they already have a witch on their payroll. They won’t need a second.”

Witch Hazel put her hands on her hips. “So my choice is help you and maybe die, run and maybe die, or wait for them to come and die?”

“Got it in one,” Habbly said. “I can’t see you running fast in those heels.”

“As for money, we’ve not a coin,” Julius continued. “The men who asked for my help are peasant farmers who lost what little they had to the Nine Dukes. The enemy we face is living off plunder and won’t have much money if we defeat them, and no one will pay ransom for those we capture. I’m sorry to say the only reward you can expect from helping us is your own life.”

Witch Hazel bit her lower lip and frowned. Her mood changed quickly, though, and she smiled at Julius. “I don’t seem to have much choice, but if money’s tight I’ll take pay in other forms.”

“What do you mean?” Brody asked.

“Simple. I ask three questions and I get honest answers to all three, here and now.”

Julius hesitated. “That would depend on the questions.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Three questions, three answers, no conditions. Take it or leave it.”

Julius frowned, but in the end relented. “Ask.”

Smiling sweetly, Witch Hazel asked, “Why isn’t there a Mrs. Craton?”

Dumbfounded, Julius could only manage to say, “What?”

“You heard me, hero. You’re the most eligible bachelor on Other Place. I know of queens, princesses, duchesses, baronesses and countesses who want your hand. Merchants dream of marrying their daughters off to you, and they’d pay a handsome dowry. If I offered your hand in marriage for sale I’d get offers over twenty thousand gold sovereigns.”

“I’m not happy with the direction this conversation just took,” Brody said.

“You’re not happy?” Julius shouted. “I’m the one on a hypothetical auction block!”

Habbly grabbed Sworn Doom and pulled the magic sword from Julius’ sheath. “This is too weird. We need another opinion.”

Witch Hazel saw him draw the sword and backed up. “Hey, wait a minute!”

“Zzz, hmm, what’s happening?” Sworn Doom asked.

“We’re having a relationship question and need advice,” Habbly explained.

“Oh, a witch. Did she try to kill him?” the sword asked

“Not yet,” Habbly said.

“Then tell him to go for it.”

Julius took back the sword and sheathed it. “Not helping!”

Witch Hazel regained her confidence now that the sword was put away. “Answer the question.”

“I don’t even understand it!” Julius protested.

The witch walked up to him and reached a finger through the holes in his armor. Tapping his chest with each word, she asked, “Why aren’t you married?”

Julius seemed to shrink as his shoulders drooped and he slouched. He looked down, a beaten expression on his face, and when he spoke it was in a subdued tone.

“I joined the Guild of Heroes at fifteen years old. The first thing I had to do was read a scroll with the names of all the people who’d joined the guild. These were men and women who’d made the same choice I had. There were older scrolls dating back even farther, but this one covered the last hundred years and had 8,417 names on it. My next task was to read another scroll listing the honored dead, guild members who lost their lives in the line of duty in the last century. It had 8,177 names.”

Brody gasped. Habbly dropped his mop. Witch Hazel backed away with a look of horror.

“The point was to show me what I was getting into while there was still time to leave,” Julius continued. “Very few guild members retired. We don’t last that long. I’ve been in the guild for fifteen years, and I’m currently the longest serving member. If I last another two years I’ll be the longest serving member in guild history. We fight the good fight for just causes, and we die doing so.

“You asked me why I didn’t marry. I have had offers, some made out of love, others more calculated. I turned them all down as gently as I could because I know what’s waiting for me. A man can only fight so many enemies before he meets one he can’t defeat. I’ve been lucky so far, but my day will come and my name will be added to the scroll of honored dead. When that happens I don’t want to leave behind a widow and children. It’s not fair. Better I stay alone so I don’t hurt others when I leave this world.”

The silence was unbearable. The mimic that was pretending to be a chest broke down and cried. Brody fought back tears and swore to himself that he’d save Julius no matter the risk. Witch Hazel was silent, possibly from shame but it was hard to tell.

“You have your answer,” Julius said. “It was painful and humiliating, which is probably why you asked it. What are your other two questions?”

Witch Hazel needed a moment to compose herself before she spoke. “Where do you need me and when?”

It was dark by the time Witch Hazel finished packing. Most of her possessions remained in her house, but she was bringing eight leather bags bulging with things she’d stuffed into them. Staying the night was possible, but she insisted they leave at once. Time was short, and the witch claimed that the Fallen King wasn’t stopping his rampage even for nightfall. She finished by harvesting all her ripe herbs and putting them into a ninth bag.

“I need a few minutes to put wards over my house,” she said as she walked back to the front door. “Mostly they’re defensive and misdirect people looking for me, but if the Fallen King is coming I should put up active defenses. I have some nasty spells that should do the job.”

“She’s putting up the goblin confounding talisman again,” Habbly said.

Brody chuckled. “That’s an act of desperation. I hope she kept the receipt.”

Julius watched Witch Hazel cast her spells. “I hope she’s worth the difficulty.”

Just then Julius heard a rustling sound. He looked back and saw Habbly and Brody going through Witch Hazel’s belongings. “Hey, what are you two doing?”

Brody looked up from a bag and asked, “Should we be worried that half her baggage is hair care products?”

Goblin Stories XXIII

Molo the goblin crouched down behind a patch of dense bushes, pie in hand and prepared to do the most ungoblinlike thing imaginable, give it away. It was unnatural. Every fiber of his being shouted, “throw it at somebody, anybody!”, but he resisted the urge. His fingers twitched as he set down the warm apple pie where someone could find it.

“Can we at least mix laxatives in it?” another goblin asked. Molo was accompanied by two more goblins, both diggers armed with shovels and hammers. They were a bit shorter than Molo and nowhere near as hairy. The pair had followed him for months on their self appointed mission, and they were the best friends he had.

Molo shook his head and went through the pockets of his pea green pants, the only clothes he wore. “I think we can make this work, but we need to keep the guy here, and eating will do that.”

“So will laxatives.”

“He’ll be more likely to listen if he’s not going to the bathroom,” Molo told them. He looked down the forest road. The forest canopy opened just enough to create a ribbon of light along the packed dirt road. The goblins were waiting where the road forked, one way going south and the other northeast. Their target should arrive any minute, and they needed him to go south.

One of the diggers looked down the road and said, “I spy something with my little eye that starts with I.”

“Idiot?” the other digger goblin asked.

“Got it in one.”

“Go set the snares in case this doesn’t work,” Molo told the others. He hurried the two digger goblins into the forest and then finished setting the lure. He added some rope, a springy tree branch freshly cut and three wood pegs, then set them on the ground next to the pie. Molo ran off down the south road and hid behind a tree.

He didn’t have to wait long before a young man marched down the road. He wasn’t much to look at, with dirty cotton clothes, a walking stick, a water bottle and a sheathed dagger on his belt. The only thing he had going for him were muscles and plenty of them. Molo figured that with biceps like those the man was a farmer or lumberjack.

What he didn’t have was baggage, no sack or basket or backpack where you might store food. Goblins could eat nearly anything so they didn’t worry about provisions, but humans had to work to fill their bellies. A knowledgeable man could forage his way through the countryside, eating wild plants and catching game, but finding enough food wasn’t a sure thing.

The young man hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Molo knew this because he and his fellow goblins had been following him the whole time. They knew where this road led and where the young man had to be going, and they were determined to stop him. Combat was risky and something the three goblins weren't very good at, so they were going to try a different approach.

The young man saw the pie and stopped. He was hungry, but he was also suspicious. He came closer, testing the ground with his walking stick in case the pie was on a covered pit. He looked around for enemies waiting in ambush. It took the better part of five minutes for him to get close enough to actually touch the pie and pick it up. He cut out a slice and poked inside. Being suspicious of free things was smart, but Molo was on a schedule and had to get things moving. He knew one surefire way to get a person to take the bait, namely make them think others wanted it.

“Hey! Hey, you!” Molo ran down the road and pointed at the pie. The young man backed up and went for his dagger. He relaxed when he saw it was juts a goblin. Molo stopped a few feet away and shouted, “You give that back! That’s my pie you’re holding. Hand it over.”

“What do you mean yours? You critters eat dirt and branches. What would you want a pie for?” The young man studied the other items on the ground where he’d found the pie. Smirking, he said, “Oh, so you were going to throw it at someone!”

Molo shrugged. “Technically the trap would do the throwing part. Come on, I’m a busy goblin and there are people to annoy.”

The young man smiled and ate the slice he’d cut out. “Not bad.”

“Hey, none of that! Go get your own!”

“Not a chance.” The young man gobbled up one slice after another until there was only half of the pie left. While some might consider that an act of gluttony, he’d missed at least three meals and likely hadn’t eaten much in the last week. “I’m on a long journey and I need to keep my strength up.”

“That sounds like it should interest me, but doesn’t.” Molo looked at the man with pleading eyes, saying, “Come on, I can still set a pie trap with half a pie.”

“I’m not stupid. If I hand this back you’ll throw it at me.”

“Maybe,” Molo conceded. He pointed a finger at the young man and said, “But you’re plenty stupid even without handing back my pie. You’re walking straight toward an army.”

The young man took a swig from his water bottle to wash down the pie. “I know. The Fallen King is up ahead, and I’m signing up with him.”

Molo did his best to look stunned, and it wasn’t entirely forced. “You’re what? Wow, I expect knights and soldiers to run headlong into death, but I kind of thought the rest of your people were smarter than that. What are you throwing your life away for?”

“I’m not throwing it away, I’m winning it back.” The young man ate another slice of pie and pointed his dagger at Molo. “My father once said our family has been on the same plot of land for ten generations. He acted like that was something to be proud of. We’re tied to our land by the dukes and can’t leave without their permission, and they never give it. Ten generations of my family never went more than twenty miles from where they were born. As far as the dukes are concerned, we’re no different than the sheep we raise.”

“Shepherd, huh,” Molo said. “I got it wrong.”

“What?”

“Nothing. But what’s that got to do with the Fallen King? He’s a real piece of work, raising an army of deserters and thieves. That’s someone to run from.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, where everyone’s wrong.” There wasn’t much pie left, but thankfully the young man stopped his feast long enough to say, “The Fallen King is going after the dukes. He’s going to bring down their castles and get rid of them. When they’re gone our people will finally be free. Eight hundred years of serving the dukes, bowing and groveling, paying their taxes and surviving their wars will finally be over. We can go where we want and do what we want.”

“Or you’ll be dead,” Molo said. “You’re big and strong, but you don’t have armor or weapons. The knights and soldiers will cut you in half. I bet you’ve never even been in a big fight before.”

“No true! There was that time my sister’s boyfriend came at me with a club. Of course he was drunk at the time…really drunk. I would have been in danger if he hadn’t run into a wall.” The young man pointed his dagger at Molo again and said, “It’s worth the risk. What good is living when you’re lower than an animal? I might get hurt, I might get killed, but I won’t ever kneel again.”

“So don’t kneel.” Molo pointed to the south road and explained, “The dukes claim the land on the coast, but they don’t pay attention to it. They’re too busy fighting each other to care about sniggling little things like fishing and trade. There are towns and villages that pay taxes and that’s it. They never even see the dukes or their soldiers. You can live there and nobody will ever know.”

Before the young man could object, Molo pointed at the pie and said, “There’s a lady who runs an orchard down that way, less than an hour away. That’s were I got the pie. She’s looking for people to help her. You want to leave home and your duke, that’s where you can go. My idea is better than yours because it involves less dying and more pie.”

“Don’t you get it?” the young man shouted. “This is the best chance in my lifetime to get rid of the dukes. There might not be another opportunity like this for centuries. I can run away and save myself, or I can save everyone. That’s worth the risk.”

This wasn’t going well. Desperate, Molo said, “The Fallen King isn’t saving anyone.”

The young man had the last slice of pie inches from his mouth when Molo said that. He lowered it back to the pie pan and looked at the goblin. “What?”

“There are only five or six people left in these parts, and one of them is the lady with the pies. The rest ran for their lives before the Fallen King got them.”

Red faced, the young man shouted, “That’s a lie! He’s after the dukes!”

Molo stood his ground and folded his arms across his chest. “There were nine farmhouses on this road. Did you see them, or just ash piles? This is farm country with good dirt, the kind you just throw down a seed and watch it grow. Do you see crops growing, or burned fields? The woods are thick with tall trees people use to build houses and boats from. Did you see any lumberjacks, or have they all run off? How long has it been since you’ve seen another person besides me?”

The young man stared at him, not responding. Molo went on. “The Fallen King’s men have already been here. They ate what they wanted and burned the rest. I hope you liked that pie, because you won’t find another bite to eat for miles.”

Molo pointed to the south road and said, “They didn’t go that way. That way you’ll find a few houses and the nice lady and her pies. You like pie, right? Keep going and you’ll reach the coast with fishing towns and trading centers.”

The young man finished the last of the pie and tossed the pan at Molo. “You’re trying to trick me, goblin.”

“If you think I’m wrong, keep walking and you’ll see what your friend the Fallen King has done. It gets worse up ahead.”

“Hello?” Molo and the young man turned to see a shapely woman in a form fitting cotton dress walking up the southern road. She smiled and put a hand to her heart when she saw the young man. “Oh thank God, the mayor sent someone.”

The young man stared at her. “Huh?”

“Mayor Biggles sent you, right?” she asked. “He came back last week and told me he’d keep an eye out for help or anyone else who returned. I’m so glad you’re here. The work, it’s just too much to do myself.”

Still staring at her (without making eye contact), the young man asked, “Um…you need someone?”

A stray breeze blew the woman’s long blond hair over her face, and she stopped to brush it aside. “My parents left me my orchard, but it’s too much work for one person. I hired helpers, but they all ran off last month and the apples are ripe. If I don’t get them harvested soon they’ll rot.” She reached into a purse and took out several coins. “I know I’m asking a lot, but I can pay.”

“Your helpers joined the Fallen King?” the young man asked.

“They ran from him!” she said. “I would have run, too, but I couldn’t get away in time. It’s blind luck and nothing else they didn’t go south and do to my land what they did to Fire Light. The whole town’s gone and everyone chased off.”

The young man stared at her, mesmerized. Molo didn’t quite understand what was happening, for while he was fairly bright by goblin standards he didn’t understand humans too well. Young men’s brains shut down in the presence of pretty women, and tight fitting dresses with low necklines only make matters worse. Hormones did what reason couldn’t, and a worried look passed the young man’s face.

“They, they destroyed a whole town?”

“Dozens of towns,” Molo piped in. “The Fallen King is like a wildfire, burning up everything in his way.”

The woman looked quizzically at Molo. “Is he with you?”

“What? I’ve never seen him before. He, uh, he, uh, he stole one of your pies!” The young man pointed at the empty pie pan at Molo’s feet.

The woman’s jaw dropped. “I just baked that this morning!”

“I took it, but I didn’t eat it!” Molo scowled at the young man, saying, “You’re going to get it for this, pal!”

“This is too much!” the woman cried. “My whole crop is ripe and I’ve no one to pick it, no one to press it, and now I’ve got goblins robbing me!”

The young man chased after Molo, shouting, “I’ll get rid of him for you!”

“You jerk!” Molo ran into the woods with the young man a step behind. He got away, but that was because the young man gave up so fast. Instead of attacking the goblin, he went back to console the woman. In a few minutes they took the south road and left him alone.

Molo came out of the woods and was joined by the two digger goblins. The pair of diggers disarmed the snares they’d set on the road to catch the young man if he kept after the Fallen King. One digger said, “That’s another win, Molo. That makes nine people we kept from joining the Fallen King and one wizard turned good.”

“I’m just glad we didn’t have to club this one,” the other digger said. “Beating up humans is hard work, and dangerous.”

Molo watched the young man and woman disappear into the distance. “He didn’t join the Fallen King and do terrible things, but it wasn’t because of us. He ignored everything I said.”

“Typical human,” the first digger said. “I thought your pie based reasoning was very sound.”

“We’ve tricked them, reasoned with them, sometimes fought them, but I’ve never seen a human give up on the Fallen King that fast,” Molo said. “It’s like a kind of magic.”

“Molo?” a digger asked.

Molo snapped his fingers and smiled. “That’s it! I know how we can stop whole bunches of guys joining the Fallen King. Get me blonds, and lots of them!”

Goblin Stories XXII

Brody sat at the main table in the Happy Times Inn, wondering if the establishment’s name was supposed to be ironic or just poorly times. The village and inn were in danger of being overrun by the army of the Fallen King. Refugees from other destroyed villages packed the inn’s private rooms. The streets were filled with wagons and livestock, plus whatever goods the refugees could carry.

But for a change Brody had company. The blue skinned goblin shared the table with another of his kind, a dirty little goblin called Habbly who had messy hair and a long braid. Habbly wore a red shirt under his jacket, not a good sign. Everybody knew the guy wearing red got killed first. Habbly hadn’t talked much since handing a magic sword to the hero Julius Craton, and the lack of conversation bothered Brody.

“So, what’s keeping you here?” Brody asked.

“Guilt. You?”

“Pity,” Brody explained. He looked out the door where Julius Craton was trying to train the local peasants how to fight. Brody had tried to get Julius to safety before this mess started, but the hero had felt compelled to help. “Most goblins can just take a nap and forget sniggling little feelings like those. I envy them.”

“Amen, brother.”

Julius entered the inn with an elf, a fellow member of the Guild of Heroes. An ogre soon joined the pair, and while he wasn’t the biggest ogre Brody had seen, he was the best armed. The ogre was a mere six and a half feet tall and had thick fur over his heavy muscles, no doubt still a teenager, but it was the war hammer he carried that caught Brody’s attention. It was made of black iron and must have weighed a hundred pounds. The ogre had red marks on his kilt, and Brody had a sneaking suspicion they represented enemies who’d faced him and lost.

“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Brody and Habbly,” Julius told his friends. “They’ve decided to throw their lot in with us.”

“How unlike your kind,” the elf said. He studied Habbly and asked, “I know the blue one isn’t suffering from a head injury, and you look to be in good health. What brought about this suicidal urge?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Habbly said, and proceeded to not explain.

The ogre sat on the floor, as the inn’s oak chairs were too small for him. “Running wouldn’t help him. The countryside is being overrun to the north, west and south, and we’ve got Duke Thornwood and Kramer to the east. They’re better off with us than on their own. Hammerhand Loudlungs, guild member for ten years, at your disservice.”

“Charmed,” Brody replied.

Habbly pointed at the elf and asked, “Who’s this?”

The ogre sighed. “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

“I had a falling out with my family some years ago, and in revenge they stripped me of my names,” the elf explained. “That includes my school title, my army title, my twentieth year name, my city name, my family name and my personal name.”

“Can’t you just call yourself whatever you want?” Habbly asked.

“No. I am officially a non-elf, equal to you in my people’s eyes and unworthy of being named. My deeds with the guild mean nothing to them, and when I die they’ll bury me in a dung heap.”

“But you’re a hero!” Brody protested. He pointed to the sword Sworn Doom, currently sheathed on Julius’ belt and a gift from Habbly. “That sword is supposed to be special to elves. What if you brought it back to them?”

Habbly shot Brody an angry look, but there was no reason to worry. The elf said, “It doesn’t work that way. It should, but it doesn’t.”

Brody looked to Julius and the ogre before asking, “So what do you call him?”

“Stubborn,” the ogre told him. “Hey, Julius, speaking of your new toy, it’s being awfully quiet for something that’s supposed to talk.”

“It naps when it’s sheathed,” Habbly explained.

Julius and the elf sat down at the table, and the elf unrolled a map. Pointing at it, the elf said, “This is the situation as we know it now. The Fallen King’s men are on the move everywhere. They’re making slow progress against the Nine Dukes and pretty much everyone else, but they’re not stopping.”

“Any light on the horizon?” Julius asked.

The elf frowned. “If you’re looking for good news I don’t have much. There’s a town called Castaway on the coastline that’s holding out. Some human wizard calling himself Olimon fortified the place with earth magic and a flock of gargoyles. I’ve also got reports that the town of High Ridge still stands.”

Julius studied the map and asked, “Where is that?”

“I have no idea,” the elf told him. “No one can tell me where it is, but it’s supposed to have held off three attacks.”

Brody reached over and tapped the south of the map. “It’s here.”

“That’s just woods,” Julius said.

“It’s a goblin community with about a thousand guys living there. It’s new they and don’t draw attention to themselves. I’m surprised they didn’t run away.”

“I’m glad they didn’t!” Hammerhand bellowed. “I’ve heard you little ones have been fighting back since this War Winner of yours came to power. I like that.”

“You like every fight,” the elf said. “Someone called the Overlord Joshua, or maybe the Evil Overlord Joshua, has gathered up a lot of troublemakers and outlaws. I’d say we have to stop him except for the fact that his men have fought a string of battles against the Fallen King. They’re being driven back, but it’s an organized retreat instead of a rout.”

“What sort of troublemakers?” Julius asked.

“It’s a long list. They’ve got the Croner Twins, a human fire wizard called Sebastian Thane, a werewolf, Vasellia the Swordswoman and plenty more.”

Julius smiled. “Vasellia?”

Hammerhand chuckled. “You know her?”

His face turning red, Julius said, “Not the way you mean. We fought the pirate lords together. She’s a good fighter, and more importantly she’s a good person. She wouldn’t sign on with this overlord if he were evil. We should send a messenger and see if Joshua is willing to form an alliance.”

“Moving on,” the elf said tartly, “we have one bit of undisputed good news. There are reports of a gang of goblins making trouble for the Fallen King. They’ve set fire to enemy supplies, stampeded their horses and cattle, set traps, ambushed enemy scouts and generally been an incredible pain in the neck. I’m told on good authority that their leader is a gray skinned goblin with white hair and long eyebrows.”

“Little Old Dude,” Hammerhand said in awe. “I heard he retired.”

Julius saw the confused looks from Brody and Habbly, and he explained, “He’s the only goblin ever invited to join the Guild of Heroes. He refused and said he was too old for that kind of nonsense, but we still respect him. We might be able to coordinate with him.”

The elf looked at Hammerhand and said, “Tell me the guild is sending more help than you.”

“They’re not.” Hammerhand pointed at a wagon parked outside the inn and said, “Guild leadership sent me with all the weapons and armor they could spare, which isn’t much. They also said that every guild member who can still stand is either here or facing another threat.”

Habbly looked down and said, “We have some extra weapons since last week.”

“What’s this?” Hammerhand asked.

The elf pointed at Julius and said, “A raiding party from the Fallen King attacked just after I’d left. They ran into our favorite killing machine over here, and making a long story brutally short we didn’t have anyone to interrogate afterwards.”

“No wonder the peasants look spooked,” Hammerhand said.

If Julius was bothered by the elf’s description of him, he didn’t show it. “They’re peaceful people, not used to violence. The few swords we got in that fight won’t be enough. I’ve got the peasants making spears and clubs. It’s poor equipment for a fight, but better than nothing.”

“It’s not any worse than the other side,” Habbly said. “Some of them are using wood axes and pitchforks.”

Hammerhand nodded. “The little one makes a good point. Our enemies are poorly armed, and from what I’ve heard they have no siege weapons or magic. Can we keep them from getting better armed?”

“They can’t get weapons easily,” Julius said. “The best sources would be stealing them from the Nine Dukes, but they’ve pulled back to their castles and walled cities. There are no merchants selling weapons, and local blacksmiths were evacuated by the dukes along with their workshops.”

“Magic might be an issue,” Brody said. He cringed under the gazes of the others. “There are three witches in the Land of the Nine Dukes.”

“Are they good witches?” Habbly asked.

Hammerhand shrugged. “That depends entirely on how they’re prepared.”

Both goblins screamed and dove under the table as Hammerhand rocked the inn with his laughter. Julius reached down and pulled the goblins back up, then sat them down again.

“Don’t scare the goblins!” Julius scolded him.

“I doubt the peasants would take your sense of humor well, either,” the elf said.

Hammerhand held up his open hands. “Come on, guys! I have two loves, pranks and fighting. Let me guess, this isn’t the right time or place.”

“What would be a right time or place for that joke?” the elf asked. “If you’ve gotten that out of your system?”

“No.” Hammerhand nudged Brody and asked, “You hear about the time Julius saved a foreign merchant? The merchant gave him a girl from his harem.”

Brody scowled. “I’m not falling for another of your jokes.”

Julius looked down and blushed again. “That, um, that actually happened. But everything worked out okay. I got her settled down and helped her get a job, and she married a good man. Hammerhand, stop laughing!”

Peasants peered into the inn, confused by the ogre’s outrageous laughter. The sound echoed through the inn and could be heard across the village. Julius blushed so hard even his neck turned dark red. The goblins exchanged confused looks, neither one understanding what was so funny.

“It was slavery!” Julius protested. “You don’t give people away, and you certainly don’t keep them. It was the right thing to do.”

The elf shook his head. “Only you, Julius, only you.”

“I don’t get the joke,” Brody told Habbly.

“Me neither. Maybe it’s political.”

Hammerhand had nearly calmed down, but he exploded into laughter at Habbly’s comment. Julius looked down at the floor and the elf rolled his eyes.

“Can we change the topic?” the elf asked.

“Please,” Julius said. “We were talking about witches.”

“Hmm, so we were.” Hammerhand calmed down and gestured to Brody. “You say we have three witches to worry about.”

“There are three, but I’m not sure you should worry about them all,” Brody said. “One of them is a bit accident prone. She’s had some potions misfire and spent most of this year as a newt. She’s greedy, not evil, and not too good at what she does.”

Julius nodded. “Then she can’t help us or the enemy. What of the second one?”

Brody shrugged and said, “She’s a bit better, but she’s young and kind of flighty. She spends most of her time chasing local boys or having them chase her. She’s not nasty and won’t help the Fallen King, but she might help us.”

“That statement implies we could pay her,” the elf said. He looked at Julius and smiled. “Perhaps she’d accept something in trade.”

“You’re not doing that to me again!” Julius said angrily.

“Come on, Julius,” Hammerhand said. “This time it wouldn’t be a surprise. Be honest, that date could have worked if you’d given Queen Jessica a chance.”

Julius looked up at the ceiling and said, “Brody, these witches seemed to bother you when you brought this up, but so far I’m not seeing a threat.”

Brody gulped and looked down. “The last of the three worries me. She’s done terrible things, but she only when people ask her to do. She does nothing on her own.”

“I’m not following you,” Hammerhand said.

“People go to her when they want something bad to happen to their enemies,” Brody explained. “If you ask her to hurt someone she does. She curses people, burns barns, makes livestock die, sometimes worse things than that. Whoever hires her has to pay, but not in gold. The witch wants things that are important to you, and the cost is equal to the damage she does. Some of her customers suddenly age decades while others lose their own homes and herds. Sometimes she doesn’t charge at all if what you’re asking for is terrible enough.”

The elf scowled. “Why does this woman still live?”

“She doesn’t go after the dukes or other important people. They’re safe from her, and they can get her help. As for everyone else, a few men have gone after her and she’s still here.”

Julius gestured to the map and said, “Show us where she lives.”

Brody pointed at a region near the center of the Land of the Nine Dukes. “Around here. She moves around a bit, but never far.”

The elf frowned. “That territory was overrun by the Fallen King last week. There’s a chance they met, assuming he knew about her.”

Hammerhand pointed at Brody and said, “The Fallen King’s army is made up of local recruits. If the goblin knows about this witch, then so would the men serving the Fallen King. The question is whether the man is fool enough to bargain with her.”

Alarm bells rang in the distance and men cried out in terror. Julius charged out of the inn with the others following into the dwindling light of dusk. Brody had limited experience with fighting and none with armies, so he didn’t know what to expect. He ran alongside Julius up the earthen wall around the village to find a single man attacking them.

They would have lost if there had been a second one.

Peasants ran from the attacker and animals fled, and for good reason. The lone attacker wore nothing save scruffy clothes and a look of madness and rage on his face. He howled and ran at whoever was closest. His hands were empty, for the back flames pouring off them burned anything he touched. A peasant swung a hammer at him, but the crazed man caught it and crumbled the iron head like it was a sandcastle. The peasant threw down the wood handle and fled.

“Problem solvers coming through!” Hammerhand bellowed. He swung him hammer in a wide sweep, but the madman jumped over it and brought his flaming hands down on Julius. Julius saw it coming and drew Sworn Doom in time to block the attacks. The madman’s black flames never reached Julius, but the sword didn’t cut his skin.

“Give me a clear shot!” the elf shouted. He grabbed a bow off his shoulders and notched an arrow, but the madman was too close to his friends for him to fire. The madman struck Julius a glancing blow, enough to burn holes across his breastplate, and followed it up with a kick that drove him back. Hammerhand jabbed the madman in the gut with his hammer’s handle, a blow that could have caved in an oak door. The madman grunted and doubled over, then burned off a corner of the hammer with a swing of his blazing hands.

Brody scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at the madman’s face. He missed the man’s eyes but managed to hit his mouth. The madman stepped back, spitting out dirt. Habbly grabbed the wood handle the peasant had thrown down and jammed it between the madman’s legs, tripping him. Hammerhand kicked the fallen man so hard he threw him into a house. The madman got up and shook himself like a wet dog, then attacked again.

There was a hiss as the elf fired his bow. The madman held up both hands, and the black flames burned away the arrow before it hit. Two more arrows followed to no better effect than the first. But that slowed him down enough that Habbly got behind him and hit him in the back of the knees with his handle. The madman went down again. Brody scooped up a double handful of dirt and dumped it on the man’s face, this time getting into his enemy’s eyes. The madman staggered to his feet and flailed about, his arms spinning wildly and the black flame on his hands eating through the edge of an outhouse.

Julius recovered and charged with Sworn Doom. The sword was awake and glowed like the noon sun. As he lunged in for an attack, it glowed brighter still and shouted, “Doom!”

The blow connected, and the blazing sword cut through the black flames to strike home. The madman staggered back into the outhouse and burned through the wall before falling in. Hammerhand brought his hammer down on top of the smelly building and collapsed it on the madman. The flames burned inside the wreckage for a few seconds more, and they waited for their enemy to rise, but the black fire flickered and died out.

Julius dug through the broken boards until he unearthed their enemy. He checked the man’s hands, which were unburned in spite of the magic fire that once covered them. “He’s got scars on his palms. Looks like two broken swords crossing each other, just like the men in the raiding party. He was with the Fallen King, so his army and this witch have met and made a deal.”

“Why did they send him alone?” the elf asked. “This would have been a real threat if he was supported by a few hundred men, or God help us another like this one.”

Brody backed away from the dead man. “I got the feeling his brain wasn’t working good enough to fight alongside someone without killing him.”

“He did have a sort of rabid feeling to him,” Hamerhand agreed. “The fool paid a high price for the witch’s gift. I doubt this is the last man we’ll meet that she’s twisted.”

It was a solemn moment, one totally ruined when Habbly looked at the dead man atop the destroyed outhouse and said, “Can we roll him out of the way, because I gotta go bad”.